Can’t wait for compulsory national service, LOL!

So, comrades, did you hear that our youth leaders are working around the clock to legalise compulsory national service for everyone after puberty?

Yup, you got that right. Before you become a content creator on Instagram, a TikTok dancer, or a lazy bum who dates moneyed sugar mommies for survival, you must first wear the National Youth Service’s paramilitary uniform and boots for a period of time. 

Only then can you be released into the wilderness.

Because you people are hooked on your hubbly bubbly pipes and constantly on your cellphones. You spend your entire day with your noses buried in screens, watching other people dance, eat, travel and become millionaires.

And to the old people in parliament, that’s a sign of lack of discipline. And lack of patriotism!

And it’s patriotism that caught my attention. You see, comrades, in Africa, patriotism can be a very interesting animal. Depending on who is defining it, patriotism can mean loving your country. Or it can mean loving the people running your country – like Ugandans are to Kaguta Museveni. And heaven forbid you confuse the two.

In countries like Uganda, you have to be in the diaspora to ask, even on Facebook, why a borehole in your village has been broken for eight months without a repair.

Patriotic citizens are not expected to ask such embarrassing questions of their leaders. Why are you asking questions? Don’t you love your country? 

It is apparently unpatriotic to speak truth to power.

If a minister enters the room, everyone must stand up. And stop breathing! 

How dare you make noise with your bloated nostrils in the presence of a senior official of the state?

And who determines what is patriotic, by the way? Is the young person who asks why the hospital has no medicine unpatriotic? Is the graduate who asks why he has been unemployed for six years unpatriotic? Is the villager who asks why the government promised a road in 2014 and is still waiting for the first truck of gravel unpatriotic?

Or is the patriotic citizen the one who says “Yes, Your Excellency” before Your Excellency has even finished her sentence?

Let’s go back to national service. Boots on the ground! Discipline! Patriotism!

The whole country will become one giant boot camp. Namibia will finally be transformed into the disciplined nation we have always dreamed about.

Picture our slay queens in Rietfontein milking government cows with their bare hands. Bare hands! No nail polish. No fake nails. No fake eyelashes. No Brazilian weave. No excuses.

Or Dirty Tangeni being told – for the first time in his life - to pull up his pants. Ugly scenes!

Ephraim Nekongo is not playing games. He’s serious about this thing. Look at his comments in the media this week. He sounded like a tired man. Tired of unruly young people. Tired of hubbly's bubbling.

At this rate, I suspect the next phase will be a national commission to investigate young people who say “yeah” instead of “yes, sir”.

But perhaps we should also introduce compulsory national service for adults. Parliamentarians first, obviously. They are the ones who were reported in the media to be visiting porn sites on their official iPads during parliamentary sessions.

But anyway, young mothers, start preparing Junior for the tough days ahead. He can have all the items in the toy shop right now, under your lenient regime.

Let him have the cellphone. Let him have the PlayStation. Let him wear his trousers somewhere between his waist and his knees.

But post-puberty, the state will come for him. The Republic will collect him. We will put him in boots. We will shave off his mohawk, and teach him how to salute.

Can’t wait. LOL!