The values and ideas represented by Abraham Iyambo

Last week I travelled to Windhoek to visit a friend. We met up with friends and colleagues of our generation, most of who are in the same age range as our departed former minister of education, Dr Abraham Iyambo.

The conversation shifted to how the political space might have been had he still been around.

Mulele, always been the loudest and most flamboyant among the men in our group, was the first to register his opinion, speculating that had Abraham been around, he would have been one of the candidates gunning for the vice presidency of the ruling party, Swapo.

Nadia was the first to retort that Mulele always looks at things from a political angle, arguing that he should instead consider the social and developmental angle at times. We all agreed.

That is how we need to discuss the ideas that Abraham Iyambo represented.

That we are still discussing him, close to 10 years after his passing on 3 February 2013, tells the story about his significance.

Journalist Wonder Guchu put it well some years ago, consoling us that "there are some mirrors that shatter, and people will just walk away, but there are other mirrors that shatter, and everybody with a face worth looking at cries."

He added that Abraham was like "a national mirror on whom the nation had put so much trust and faith for the development of better national faces ... when Iyambo was moved from fisheries to education, the nation sighed in relief. And when news about his death started to spread during the weekend, the nation groaned in pain and disbelief."

Abraham was a national asset. There are key ideas he represented worth reflecting upon. When he was moved from fisheries to education, the nation easily noticed him – so much so that we still remember him.

Comparatively few would remember that Willem Konjore or Isak Katali were ministers of environment and mines, respectively.

This shows that Abraham was the kind of leader who one easily noticed and was able to follow. He captured the national mood and imagination, resulting in people, both inside and outside of education, to follow his vision and action.

Abraham was a present leader who brought about visible and impactful leadership. Most writers of leadership texts led us to believe that there are reformist and transformative leaders, and that they are distinct.

Abraham demonstrated that two approaches can coexist.

He would visit schools where headmasters frequently came to school drunk and late.

His visits resulted in behavioural changes – not only in a particular headmaster but also in others.

At the same time, he championed real structural changes in the education system, such as curriculum transformation.

We still recall the education conference, with broader sectoral representation, where President Pohamba publicly announced that he sleeps peacefully with Abraham at the helm of the education ministry and reform agenda. He demonstrated that it is possible for reformers to be transformers at the same time and vice versa.

Abraham had what current leaders lack: honesty and integrity.

In 2009, government took the decision to collapse the former colleges of education and integrate them within the University of Namibia.

This was an unwise electoral ploy by the ruling party.

Nangolo Mbumba, then the Swapo deputy secretary general, was unfortunately the education minister.

This decision had several negative consequences.

The first, and most obvious, was that this electoral ploy, arrived at haphazardly and without scientific research and impact assessments, resulted in a serious teacher shortage because of the upheaval in the routine production of teachers, among other negative consequences.

Towards the end of his life, Abraham acknowledged the problems presented by the merger of colleges of education with the University of Namibia.

In fact, he commissioned a study on this matter and stated that it is possible to reverse the 2009 Mbumba electoral-ploy decision.

It is very rare for a Swapo leader to publicly admit the mistakes made by the government and to commit to changing them.

Most Swapo leaders would find excuses, including apartheid and opposition forces, to defend wrong decisions by Swapo and the government it leads. Abraham was cut from a different cloth; a rare leader with honesty and integrity.

Yes, he is gone and will not return. This column is not to continue mourning him but to present ideas and values that Abraham represented in the hope that there may be younger leaders who could pick up Abraham’s spear and heart in fighting for a better Namibia.

Muthoni waKongola is a native of Kongola in the Zambezi Region primarily concerned with analysing society and offering ideas for a better Namibia. She is reachable at [email protected] or @wakongola on Twitter.