My vote is no secret

WE dare not give up the fight and desire to remain nothing but a country of many ethnic groupings, whose ultimate aim is nothing but to fulfil the right to live. The hatred of a few for the President of our country is blind to our desire to remain united and Namibian.

They once again threatened the party that took our youth in 1988, as we marched for those unknown fellow citizens at the Ponhofi Secondary School, demanding their right to study away from the military bases, just like the schools in Windhoek.

The driving force remained the realisation that we all share the same scorching heat and weather of this place we call home. Swapo Party remains the medium through which we shared our aspirations and desires with one another and the outside world, those with a similar dislike for injustice.

The country, which at times frustrates and equally ignites a sense of pride, is being threatened by anarchists. They are attempting to exploit the weaknesses of the vulnerable and the unpleasant condition of the moment in wanting to paint us as different.

They deliberately fail to acknowledge that despite the steep climb, we have made strides not only in terms of development and service delivery but also in our march towards creating a coherent and cohesive Namibia, in which no one should feel left out.

Their out-of-tune chorus,  whose aim is to create a distinction between the party and its leader, between our country and the leader, our embodiment, and their lust for power should find no place on the EVMs.  No one denies that we still have problems.

Dr Hage Geingob is the only Presidential candidate of the Swapo Party, which through its democratic structures elected him as such. This was the case with Founding President Sam Nujoma, chosen by that old man of our country whose dream was for a Namibia of visible yet complimentary contrast, Hosea Kutako, and the son from Okangudhi ka Pohamba, who taught us that as Africans we are but an extension of one another and we live well when we share.

Namibia voted for Hage Geingob because he is made of the same resolve and resilience, like that protected plant of ours, the Welwistchia. That plant that shows us that despite our country being desert, ours is a desert with life.

Yet those whose dream stands in contrast to the rest have for the past five years attempted to sell the idea that Geingob is not the person for the job, without producing evidence, except for noise that is meant to close out any counter argument.

They walk into cities to recreate the resemblance of the only socialist who ever walked this planet, Jesus Christ. (Gorbachev, edited)  Shouting ‘Namibia is all we have’ (a phrase they stole from the President and the author).

They want our people to believe that theirs is the struggle to save the country from a monster – seen only by them. They want to stage a coup in a democratic country and flush our collective future to soothe their bruised egos.

All the ills besetting our society, the detachment of our ministers, is not by his creation or volition. The past five years saw the President busy setting the conditions for his second term, and through that process, stumbled upon anomalies within the system, which anomalies he never covered.

It is a trite fact that the people’s movement, Swapo Party and our country were infiltrated by counter-revolutionary forces, whose commitment was not for the collective good, but to the self in the name of the clan, region, class and anarchist agendas. To redress an imbalance crafted and maintained over centuries will surely require more than 29 years of self-determination.

However true it may sound that many died not for our resources to buy access to exotic places, it is suicidal to change course in the middle of a clearly defined march, akin to jumping into the ocean without a life-vest in an attempt to escape the scorching heat.

Rome was and could never be built in a day. Since the President took office, he consciously distanced himself from those who took advantage of the people’s aspiration and fears. We have all been writing about the anomaly within the system. Neither we, nor the President shied away from confronting those who appeared to have a tendency to divert the much needed and scarce resources of our people.

The President always had the resolve, will and the courage to deal with those weakest links, a process we can effectively conclude after the election. The President never interfered in the trial of Katrina Hanse-Himarwa, nor did he try to cover up the fishrot, a scheme devised in 2013, when Geingob was not President of the country.

He is calling upon us to be alive to the Chapter 3 provisions of our Constitution. The President by his position might not be told the details of every transaction, and thus as in civil society, citizens and law enforcement agencies are required to be the ears and eyes on the ground. Corruption cannot be rooted out by the President alone, but all of us together as a country.

We should be the generation that outright rejects the call that is forever to seek the worst in others and bury our own flaws. Our differences should be the glue that holds us together.

Hidipo never wanted to put Geingob in dungeons, in fact the opposite is true, because of the ‘united we stand, divided we fall’ mantra, which was shared by late Peter Nanyemba. Geingob never sold this country. Rio Tinto sold its entire interest in the Rössing Uranium Mine to China National Uranium due to the Fukushima incident, which surpassed Chernobyl, as it touched on the price of the uranium.

Geingob helped create this Republic and the allegations that he is selling the country are a slap in the face. After convincing the world, together with his late brothers, HH and Gurirab, he knew that an independent Namibia would need administrators, and he became the first head of a Namibian University before Namibia was even born.

Here he educated all ethnic groups, even those fighting him now from within. He brought the Swapo flag when everybody else was afraid to come home after an absence of nearly three decades. He never ran back when Anton Lubowski was cold-bloodedly murdered by the enemy of peace, but stoically soldiered on.

He defeated the Western Five group’s attempt to write the whole constitution for Namibia. He single-handedly dismantled the various ethnic administrations and created one public service.

If this is the last vote we will cast for the country called Namibia, which I doubt given our resolve as a nation, let us do so with honour and dignity and vote for Dr Hage Geingob as president of this country and allow him to put fiscal discipline in place for time to come.

I will stand up and go vote for Dr Geingob and Swapo Party. You should stand up and vote for your party: UDF, Nudo, PDM, LPM, and Dr Hage Geingob as President of your country. Namibia is not an experiment, nor is it a toy in a China shop. Picking up the country might not be possible again during our lifetime.

* Joshua Razikua Kaumbi is a holds a BA degree in Political Science and Sociology (Unam) and LLB (Stellenbosch) and is an admitted legal practitioner currently on sabbatical.