In defence of the president (Part 2)
PROFESSOR JOSEPH DIESCHO
8. Remember in September 2016 while in Washington trying to woo investors, he told Voice of America that his biggest political influence was Fidel Castro? He either lied or does not know Castro for the leader of the revolution and Cuban state he was. Three things: Castro overthrew a regime and put his stamp on the history of Cuba and revolutions the world over. Second, Castro never succumbed to the temptation of material accumulation and personal fame, which cannot be said about Geingob, who would order a bed from China just to be different from other Namibians. Third, Castro would never change the country’s laws just to force the government to pay his wife a salary. In fact, such political behaviour would be treasonous for Castro. Castro died without a single building or street named after him because he was clear that the revolution he led was about the people, not himself. In the same interview Geingob told the world that he travels every day in two cars in order not to drive people off the streets. Has anyone seen him without an entourage of black cars, an ambulance and police bikes?
9. Remember what he did in Nairobi when he praised the warring parties in Kenya for their serious commitment to national reconciliation and cooperation to govern their country? This is the same man who has been refusing to meet with opposition parties in his own country for more than five years. This is the same man who has written certain people off as non-citizens for holding different views. Yes, while he preaches holding hands and dialogue ad nauseam!
10. Remember the promises to the AR leadership about servicing land and banishing shantytowns around the capital, and eradicating poverty, and a war against corruption, and, and, and… but the results are there for all to see - almost zero!
Let us go deeper, and remember that on 10 April 2021, there was a dialogue of the deaf regarding ‘socialism with Namibian characteristics’. Real scholars are still scratching their heads about what that was all about! It is an offshoot of totally unintelligent thinking that Namibia as a country can have a socialist economy with nothing from which to start: No real production to speak of, no buying power, no leadership with a strong ideology born out of dialectical materialism and contestation with the means of production.
A Swapo conference-goer heard of ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics,’ which makes perfect sense given their size and history of China’s search for superpower status in the world. That is an ideology and a Chinese mindset powered by a culturally well-planned and reasoned National Plan that is over 50 years old. When President Geingob mooted the idea in one of his speeches many of us thought that he was serious or understood what he was talking about. So, at this socialism workshop at the Swapo School, he was introduced as the keynote speaker to unpack the subject for the nation that was expectant to hear the leader inspire the party rank and file specifically and the nation to start behaving as socialists. Attendees took their notebooks and pens out to write something to take home and even share later with others.
What they got from the uninformed and ill-prepared president was a disastrous mumbo-jumbo, voorroo-voorroo speech, neither here nor there. Running his mouth as usual, he exhibited that he had no cooking clue about socialism as an historically contextual ideology, not to mention the place and the role of the leadership that could shape it. The presidential advisers exposed the president in an unforgivable way — to come so totally unprepared politically, intellectually, logically, and morally. The assignment was way ‘bo sy vuurmaakplek’ (above his capabilities). In utter frustration, he ended up picking a chicken fight with Kwame Nkrumah and Thomas Sankara, forgetting that those men were master theoreticians who understood the circumstances of their societies deeply, knew where they were at existentially, made proper class analyses and could synthesise what they had to do to transform their societies. Both Nkrumah and Sankara that Geingob picked a quarrel with were men of great conviction, deep love for their people and advanced emotional intelligence. In defence of Geingob, he has none of these.
Neither Nkrumah nor Sankara bragged about being rich from insider trading and money laundering like it is the tale of Geingob. Both Nkrumah and Sankara were highly moral men who did everything for their country and not for themselves and crooked friends. Their wives never got paid by government, as that would be antithetical to the ideology of self-reliance and self-sacrifice they were fostering, and as if that is not enough, they both died poor. Yet their ideologies live on even today and continue to inspire not only their countries, but all Afrikans across the globe.
Geingob does not know that leadership is about ethics. About loving the people. About empathy. About influencing people to be better, not meaner, and crueller to fellow citizens like he instils in his public service. Leadership is about integrity. What is known as integrity is something our president cannot be accused of having. We are at fault to accept he does not have it. Let us understand and appreciate the president we elected with extraordinary excitement and enthusiasm in 2014. What fools we were! My defence of the President is as follows:
1. Geingob’s first year, 2015 was promised to be the Year of Planning. They say if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Namibia is where she is today the Geingob administration notwithstanding. There was no planning of the business and activities of the state. Instead, the planning that was about and around one individual, his wellbeing and that of his family and those who carry his water and medicaments for his self-medication. No one can show what the plans were developed with the State House shopping list christened the Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPP) which should have been the Hage Personal Programme (hpp), by which the arbitrarily appointed advisors were talking back to their appointing master rather than planning the economy as such. HPP did more harm to the economy than good.
First, it killed Vision 2030 into which so much investment had gone since the days of the founding president. It frustrated the work of the National Planning Commission with its own shopping list of National Development Plans (NDP) that are hardly spoken about in the Hage era. The arrival of the A-Team coterie of advisors relegated the real cabinet of ministers to a B- or C-Team, forgetting that it is cabinet ministers of state who took an oath to uphold and protect the constitution and faithfully execute the laws of the Republic. Advisors have none of these but have only to please the president. When the HPP was announced, the National Planning Commission as the engine of national planning also read about it in the press.
Still, they are the ones who do the practical planning as they continue to play yo-yo with the national economy without legal accountability. Has anybody else wondered that the president does not have an advisor on education, which is the pillar to any national identity? We can therefore not expect actual results when the state is run by people who owe allegiance to other than the state and the Namibian people.
In defence of the president, it is not his fault that we are where we are. The man does not know that there is something wrong here and literally does not care about planning for the country. On the contrary, he is consistent with his understanding of state matters and the focus on himself. The nation has not heard or seen any national strategy around which to coalesce as a nation. What a pity considering the Namibians’ willingness to work together.
8. Remember in September 2016 while in Washington trying to woo investors, he told Voice of America that his biggest political influence was Fidel Castro? He either lied or does not know Castro for the leader of the revolution and Cuban state he was. Three things: Castro overthrew a regime and put his stamp on the history of Cuba and revolutions the world over. Second, Castro never succumbed to the temptation of material accumulation and personal fame, which cannot be said about Geingob, who would order a bed from China just to be different from other Namibians. Third, Castro would never change the country’s laws just to force the government to pay his wife a salary. In fact, such political behaviour would be treasonous for Castro. Castro died without a single building or street named after him because he was clear that the revolution he led was about the people, not himself. In the same interview Geingob told the world that he travels every day in two cars in order not to drive people off the streets. Has anyone seen him without an entourage of black cars, an ambulance and police bikes?
9. Remember what he did in Nairobi when he praised the warring parties in Kenya for their serious commitment to national reconciliation and cooperation to govern their country? This is the same man who has been refusing to meet with opposition parties in his own country for more than five years. This is the same man who has written certain people off as non-citizens for holding different views. Yes, while he preaches holding hands and dialogue ad nauseam!
10. Remember the promises to the AR leadership about servicing land and banishing shantytowns around the capital, and eradicating poverty, and a war against corruption, and, and, and… but the results are there for all to see - almost zero!
Let us go deeper, and remember that on 10 April 2021, there was a dialogue of the deaf regarding ‘socialism with Namibian characteristics’. Real scholars are still scratching their heads about what that was all about! It is an offshoot of totally unintelligent thinking that Namibia as a country can have a socialist economy with nothing from which to start: No real production to speak of, no buying power, no leadership with a strong ideology born out of dialectical materialism and contestation with the means of production.
A Swapo conference-goer heard of ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics,’ which makes perfect sense given their size and history of China’s search for superpower status in the world. That is an ideology and a Chinese mindset powered by a culturally well-planned and reasoned National Plan that is over 50 years old. When President Geingob mooted the idea in one of his speeches many of us thought that he was serious or understood what he was talking about. So, at this socialism workshop at the Swapo School, he was introduced as the keynote speaker to unpack the subject for the nation that was expectant to hear the leader inspire the party rank and file specifically and the nation to start behaving as socialists. Attendees took their notebooks and pens out to write something to take home and even share later with others.
What they got from the uninformed and ill-prepared president was a disastrous mumbo-jumbo, voorroo-voorroo speech, neither here nor there. Running his mouth as usual, he exhibited that he had no cooking clue about socialism as an historically contextual ideology, not to mention the place and the role of the leadership that could shape it. The presidential advisers exposed the president in an unforgivable way — to come so totally unprepared politically, intellectually, logically, and morally. The assignment was way ‘bo sy vuurmaakplek’ (above his capabilities). In utter frustration, he ended up picking a chicken fight with Kwame Nkrumah and Thomas Sankara, forgetting that those men were master theoreticians who understood the circumstances of their societies deeply, knew where they were at existentially, made proper class analyses and could synthesise what they had to do to transform their societies. Both Nkrumah and Sankara that Geingob picked a quarrel with were men of great conviction, deep love for their people and advanced emotional intelligence. In defence of Geingob, he has none of these.
Neither Nkrumah nor Sankara bragged about being rich from insider trading and money laundering like it is the tale of Geingob. Both Nkrumah and Sankara were highly moral men who did everything for their country and not for themselves and crooked friends. Their wives never got paid by government, as that would be antithetical to the ideology of self-reliance and self-sacrifice they were fostering, and as if that is not enough, they both died poor. Yet their ideologies live on even today and continue to inspire not only their countries, but all Afrikans across the globe.
Geingob does not know that leadership is about ethics. About loving the people. About empathy. About influencing people to be better, not meaner, and crueller to fellow citizens like he instils in his public service. Leadership is about integrity. What is known as integrity is something our president cannot be accused of having. We are at fault to accept he does not have it. Let us understand and appreciate the president we elected with extraordinary excitement and enthusiasm in 2014. What fools we were! My defence of the President is as follows:
1. Geingob’s first year, 2015 was promised to be the Year of Planning. They say if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Namibia is where she is today the Geingob administration notwithstanding. There was no planning of the business and activities of the state. Instead, the planning that was about and around one individual, his wellbeing and that of his family and those who carry his water and medicaments for his self-medication. No one can show what the plans were developed with the State House shopping list christened the Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPP) which should have been the Hage Personal Programme (hpp), by which the arbitrarily appointed advisors were talking back to their appointing master rather than planning the economy as such. HPP did more harm to the economy than good.
First, it killed Vision 2030 into which so much investment had gone since the days of the founding president. It frustrated the work of the National Planning Commission with its own shopping list of National Development Plans (NDP) that are hardly spoken about in the Hage era. The arrival of the A-Team coterie of advisors relegated the real cabinet of ministers to a B- or C-Team, forgetting that it is cabinet ministers of state who took an oath to uphold and protect the constitution and faithfully execute the laws of the Republic. Advisors have none of these but have only to please the president. When the HPP was announced, the National Planning Commission as the engine of national planning also read about it in the press.
Still, they are the ones who do the practical planning as they continue to play yo-yo with the national economy without legal accountability. Has anybody else wondered that the president does not have an advisor on education, which is the pillar to any national identity? We can therefore not expect actual results when the state is run by people who owe allegiance to other than the state and the Namibian people.
In defence of the president, it is not his fault that we are where we are. The man does not know that there is something wrong here and literally does not care about planning for the country. On the contrary, he is consistent with his understanding of state matters and the focus on himself. The nation has not heard or seen any national strategy around which to coalesce as a nation. What a pity considering the Namibians’ willingness to work together.
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