Swapo elective congress 2022

With the just-ended Swapo elective congress, we learned that politics is not about glorifying personalities at the expense of principles.

Personalities may serve their interests, but they are not more important than the principles and the unifying values that bring people together.

Many a personality wants to access power, privilege and prestige and has, as a result, drifted away from being a leader.

With the exception of a few, many so-called leaders do not know the basic principles of leadership and are entertaining their appetites for greed and honour/personal self-actualisation.

Some avoid and vilify people who offer constructive criticism stemming from expertise, ethics, science, logic and experience.

The technocrat is viewed as a threat and is ostracised and victimised.

The philosophy of leadership of walking with the people, in front of the people, and above the people is neglected.

Within the new paradigm shift of leadership at the party-political level, there is a need for inner party democracy to be safeguarded and to guard against personal self-interest and opportunism.

The unifying values of freedom, peace and justice, including integrity, transparency, respect for the rule of law, love, unity, hard work and diversity management, should also be advanced.

Because institutions and organisations go through phases such as forming (foundation), storming (frictions and division), norming (camaraderie, synergy and cooperation), and performing (impactfulness through realisation of political strategic goals and objectives), now is not the time to reinvent the wheel.

Instead, it is time to complement existing achievements through milestone plans and talent management by operationalising the Millennium Development Goals, the 'Africa we want' Agenda 2063, Vision 2030, Harambee Prosperity Plan 2, and the NDPs.

This reality is so because, as Albert Einstein opined, 'we have been able to see far because we have stood on the shoulders of giants'.

A philosopher once stated that people are drawn to leadership because of wisdom, honour or money.

I propose that we choose wisdom and the abundance of knowledge, experience, and skill to build a welfare-centered, developmentalist knowledge economy state architecture in our lifetimes in order to ensure that politics and economics do not cheat our people out of empowerment.

As a result, it is required of leadership to design institutional action plans to be implemented by capable teams in line with reflecting on where we are, where we want to be, how to get there, and how we know we can get there through verifiable and measurable indicators.

Namibia’s challenges can be overcome.

The challenges that we face are opportunities to solve our problems through technical subject matter solutions that embrace political, economic, scientific, and cultural inputs.

Namibia is overwhelmed with blue prints. The time is now to adapt, benchmark and implement these road maps.

Resource constraints, prioritisation, and stakeholder consultation are necessary to inform planning. Planning can be a mix of bottom-up and top-down inputs. This brings to mind that when plans are crafted, they should be inclusive, pro-poor, sustainable, and moralistic.

In this existential dispensation, morality is needed to inform vision, plans and purposes.

Individual responsibility on the part of society is needed to transform followers into leaders and to rise to leadership.

Leadership is about self-sacrifice and servanthood and should defend the cause of the poor.

It should empower and be pragmatic.

Leadership should love all people; serve all people; empower all people, and improve the living conditions of the have-nots.

A commitment to a united, transparent, accountable, disciplined, honest, focused, caring and loving leader-follower relationship can make this agenda possible.

The Bible states that "he who defends the rights of the poor shall reign a long time".

Therefore, a foundation for a pro-poor, gender and youth sensitive empowering state should be laid and continued to be laid in order to build on previous legacies post-elective congress 2022.