Daniel Sampayo
It was on Monday, 22 August 2022 that I read an interesting article in The Namibian newspaper titled “Colonialism messed up.” The article had mixed emotions from the ruling and opposition party. I found a statement by President Hage Geingob worth exploring.
I quote, “Our country was oppressed for a hundred years. The German and apartheid colonial administrations messed up and neglected our people. It was a hundred years of oppression. Yet, there is an expectation that we must solve problems in 30 years.” Time cannot solve problems, it’s action that does. It is not what happens that determines the future, but what you do about it. We don’t need over a hundred years to solve Namibia’s development and economic troubles.
In their book, “When money destroys nations”, Philip Haslam and Russell Lamberti wrote about how our neighbours Zimbabwe, once a great nation, was utterly destroyed in a span of just 13 years (1996 - 2008) by the late president Robert Mugabe’s administration through corruption, greed and economic mismanagement. Quoting Friedrich Hegel, “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” Namibia, a country blessed with natural resources with a very small population, yet after over 30 years of independence, we are far from developing the country. How much time do we need to develop Namibia?
A nation can easily be ruined in a short period of time. On the other hand, very hard to develop. We can give reasons why Namibia’s development and economic problems cannot be solved because that’s easy to do. However, none of these reasons count. It is only the results of what we do that counts. It is time to work together rather than play the blame games.
Founding President Sam Nujoma launched Namibia’s Vision 2030 in June 2004. It was formed because there was a clearly defined goal how we could get there. Setting goals is essential as they enable us to gather all the tools we need to reach them. The founding father had a vision, and he named it so because it was quite possible to reach it.
It could have taken us 26 years to reach Vision 2030. However, corruption, greed and mismanagement of resources by the leaders had robbed us a great deal of time (18 years) to take steady steps towards the vision.
Today, we have nearly eight years to reach Vision 2030. By the look of things, it is utterly a goal we can’t reach. If 18 years got us here, what can we expect in eight years? Total failure. There is a French proverb, which says, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. Many changes have been implemented to develop the nation, but nothing has changed. Because in the process of making these changes, greed and corruption often steps in. The Fishrot scandal is a good typical example.
In closing, we don’t necessarily need time to solve Namibia’s developmental and economic problems. We already have what is needed. Leaders should set greed and corruption aside, and bring in ingenuity and sound leadership approaches that benefit the whole country at large.