Homesick Diescho counts on Mbumba, Nandi-Ndaitwah

Self-exiled academic Professor Joseph Diescho - who claims to have been hounded out of the country by the deliberate actions of late president Hage Geingob - hopes new head of state Nangolo Mbumba and his deputy Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah will make conditions better for his return to the country.

One of the ways Geingob hounded him out was by making sure he was not invited as a guest speaker, for a fee, to events such as public lectures, Diescho said. This was supposedly to punish him for being perceived as an enemy of the state, a tribalist and a political risk.

Geingob consistently denied having a hand in Diescho’s self-imposed exile.

Approve my land application

According to the Germany-based academic, he plans on returning to Namibia at the end of this year, but the top leadership of the country and the ruling Swapo Party must relax the silent embargo imposed upon him. The homesick professor also wants the Rundu Town Council to approve his land application, a piece of land on which he wants to build an academic institution.

Diescho said if these conditions are met, he will return to his country of birth, where he wishes to contribute to the betterment of the ‘Namibian House’ and the economy.

“I do not expect them to break the law to create employment for me. But I want them to make the climate peaceful and conducive for me to operate,” he told Namibian Sun. “At the moment, it's not [peaceful and conducive]. I want them to lift that embargo. So that the people who are having conferences can invite me [as a speaker].”

Ruined his chances

Diescho was sacked as executive director of the Namibian Institute of Public Administration and Management (Nipam) in 2015, following an audit at the company. But he believed he was pushed out of his job because of a newspaper column he wrote at the time, which was perceived to be perpetually critical of Geingob and Swapo leaders.

Diescho, who is affiliated to the ruling Swapo Party, said Nandi-Ndaitwah and Mbumba are best positioned to change conditions for his safe return. However, he noted that his recent communication with Nandi-Ndaitwah over her controversial endorsement as Swapo candidate for the 2024 election - despite no extraordinary congress being held after Geingob’s death on 4 February - might have ruined his chances of a comfortable return.

“I engaged Nandi-Ndaitwah, I engaged Sophia Shaningwa on their violation of the Swapo Party rules and regulations. I told them ‘you are running the risk of dividing the party and the country even more because you could hold this extraordinary congress within three months’,” Diescho said.

“I don't think they are comfortable with me pointing out what I did because our leaders do not like constructive criticism. They like you to say to them ‘everything is fine’, even if you disagree. And I'm an honest man. I want to make the party I affiliate with stronger, and the party that I'm close to is Swapo.

“And it is in that way that I took the initiative to write a note to Nandi-Ndaitwah and said when the drafters of the [Swapo constitution] clauses wrote those words, they never intended that the idea of an extraordinary congress after the death of the president was a mere suggestion, but an intervention to elect the successor. And there's no way they [the drafters] meant that the election could take place 13 months later,” he said.

[email protected]