EDITORIAL: A graveyard of grand ideas
Namibian presidents seem to have a curious habit: they inherit the throne but bury the blueprint. Each successive head of state treats their predecessor’s vision not as a foundation to build upon, but as a relic to be discarded.
Take Vision 2030, Sam Nujoma’s grand dream of an industrialised Namibia. Once a shining beacon of hope, it now flickers like an abandoned lantern, starved of attention. With just five years left, industrialisation remains more of a mirage than a milestone.
Then there was president Hifikepunye Pohamba’s mass housing project, an ambitious push to put roofs over heads instead of shacks over souls. Yet, like an unfinished home, his vision was left exposed to the elements, its beams rotting in neglect. Meanwhile, the homelessness crisis persists, a testament to a dream denied.
Most recently, the late president Hage Geingob pinned his hopes on green hydrogen, pouring heart, mind and policy into making Namibia a renewable energy powerhouse. The question now looms – will his successor, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, carry the torch, or will this, too, be doused by the winds of political reinvention?
The pattern is all too familiar: each leader arrives with a new vision, as if governance were a blank canvas instead of a collaborative mural. Progress is not a sprint where each runner tosses the baton, never to retrieve it. It is a relay – continuity is key.
Namibia must break this cycle. Leadership should be about evolution, not erasure. Otherwise, we are merely watching a parade of presidents, each burying the past before planting new seeds – only for the next to uproot them once again. The future cannot thrive in the graveyard of abandoned dreams.
Take Vision 2030, Sam Nujoma’s grand dream of an industrialised Namibia. Once a shining beacon of hope, it now flickers like an abandoned lantern, starved of attention. With just five years left, industrialisation remains more of a mirage than a milestone.
Then there was president Hifikepunye Pohamba’s mass housing project, an ambitious push to put roofs over heads instead of shacks over souls. Yet, like an unfinished home, his vision was left exposed to the elements, its beams rotting in neglect. Meanwhile, the homelessness crisis persists, a testament to a dream denied.
Most recently, the late president Hage Geingob pinned his hopes on green hydrogen, pouring heart, mind and policy into making Namibia a renewable energy powerhouse. The question now looms – will his successor, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, carry the torch, or will this, too, be doused by the winds of political reinvention?
The pattern is all too familiar: each leader arrives with a new vision, as if governance were a blank canvas instead of a collaborative mural. Progress is not a sprint where each runner tosses the baton, never to retrieve it. It is a relay – continuity is key.
Namibia must break this cycle. Leadership should be about evolution, not erasure. Otherwise, we are merely watching a parade of presidents, each burying the past before planting new seeds – only for the next to uproot them once again. The future cannot thrive in the graveyard of abandoned dreams.
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