2017-09-22Staff Report 2 Whilst challenging the person of Dr Hage Geingob for the position of Swapo Party president, the economic and social landscape of our country underwent a seismic change. We have seen, and will continue to see, if we do not change, the collapse of institutions, the continuous plundering of national resources, disintegration and relaxation of morals. Regrettably, moral authority has already escaped a number of our national leaders, casting the country into the moral wilderness, presenting as dire a situation as we have ever observed. Those meant to be the guardians of the people’s power and interest, as elected national leaders, have subscribed to the temporary mantra that money buys power, and that the means justifies the end, unmindful of the national outcry. We have created a culture of fear and docility, with the only voices being those of party apparatchiks serving the interest of one power-mongering interest group after another. The national body politik has reached a stage where national resources are being used to buy favours, through an entrenched and insidious political patronage system, that will take political courage to destroy. To avoid hunger and isolation those who are supposed to speak wisdom to power, are forced to hear and see no evil. Namibia has reached a critical level in terms of inter-tribal relations and no national leader seems to care, because the culprit might be a delegate kingpin or favoured delegate. The fate of our children’s future has been left to those who see no repercussions for their rambunctious pillaging of our economy, and see atonement as something only meant for the afterlife. We have reduced a party that was founded on a noble and just cause, and for whom many gave their precious life, to a roulette table for some to extract their pound of flesh for their proximity to the party’s inner workings. Congress is meant to devise policies and mechanisms that will steer the government for a period of five years. We will achieve this only through the selection of citizens with high moral standing, demonstrated wisdom and the ability to articulate the aspirations and needs of all citizens. We need leaders who can represent what we have come to term ‘minority’ and ‘majority’ citizens alike, not us or them. When the sitting president invites ministers to present arguments and solutions in the public interest, only one side seems to be ready, the other side is in the districts and regions fighting for a ticket to congress, or circulating their photo-shopped posters, with no agenda on social media, begging for inclusion on the central committee. We as a citzens no longer care to verify the credentials of those intending to serve us. We have outsourced even our ability to think. Politics seem to be the only career for my brothers in the “underserving” political class, leaving all other important sectors of our political economy exposed to manipulation and domination. We do this, apparently, to unseat him or to keep him in power, even though we all know that our Republic was built on the bedrock of each president being granted the opportunity to see through the full mandate and the vision for the country from stability through continuity to prosperity. Whilst we plead for the minority and majority, the actual minority, with no political credentials, continues to offload treasures and assets meant for the masses along the way and by so doing cast aside decades of precedence and thus endanger our stability and cohesion. Their intention is to eventually jump off this moving train to collect what they have been throwing off, leaving the real majority in trouble. With this onslaught on some instruments of state policy, the citizenry suffer and service delivery comes to a complete standstill. The social fabric is full of holes, the economy skewed, the judiciary largely untransformed, yet we are interested in a position having a competent occupant, instead of addressing all this myriad of issues under our collective mandate. We do all this under the guise of democracy. Former president Pohamba took action not to create two centres of power in our country when he prematurely vacated the position of party president, but alas his good intention has to be pounced upon by vultures circling about a famished population, battered by drought and lack of transformation in the tattered fabric of our nation, for which they have had such high expectations. Now that we are ad idem, the majority that matters at least, that the sitting president should be confirmed as Swapo Party president. I opine it is time we reach out to one another. No tribe in this country can confidently claim the whole 87% of the sitting president. It was 87% of the whole country, whose love is for the country, for they have seen her potential and know better days are possible, and not the majority or minority who are in actual fact insignificant on their own. We should now start to open the discussions for the other positions, which should project the national character of the Swapo Party. * Joshua Razikua Kaumbi is a holder of a BA in Political Science (Unam), an LLB (Stellenbosch) and is an admitted attorney. 2017-09-22Staff Report 2
