Namibia’s leadership crisis fuels the Covid-19 crisis
By Victor Angula |
It’s during periods of crisis that great leadership is displayed. And the time and environment we live in today call for leadership to step up to the occasion.
Unfortunately in Namibia, and possibly the rest of Africa and worldwide, leaders have failed to step up and show remarkable leadership in the face of Covid-19.
Covid-19 is a pandemic, and right now it has become a crisis in Namibia, with people dying in a manner never seen before. But where are the leaders?
What I can see are people filling positions of leadership but all they do is tell us what they are being told by someone else. Government leaders are just telling the nation what the WHO is saying. The World Health Organisation says that the best way to fight Covid-19 is by wearing masks, sanitizing, staying indoors and taking the vaccine.
And this is what our leaders are parroting. Our leaders don’t seem to have an opinion of any kind or an idea of any sort but to relay only what WHO is saying.
Even when the issue of the vaccine has divided the society and stirred up a great controversy, leaders are not coming out to show leadership by explaining things in an honest manner so that the vaccine can win the people’s trust and confidence.
Political leaders, traditional leaders, religious leaders, and business leaders, none of them (perhaps just a few) have stepped up to discuss the corona virus and tell us the way forward.
Of course Covid-19 prohibits people from making community gatherings; but there are many ways of community engagement which are possible in this new normal. Apart from online meetings, the media is still available as a medium of communication between leaders and the community.
But this communication has not taken place. All we are seeing are one-sided messages from those in leadership authority, doing nothing but to transmit to us what they are being told by the WHO and other world powers.
Of course we are under a state of emergency, so that apparently there is no time for discussions, consultations, and engagements with the people. Our leaders know what is best for us, right? So we just have to do what they say, whether we want it or not, whether we agree with it or not.
Soon enough we will see people getting vaccinated at gun-point, threats of imprisonment or fear of losing jobs and livelihoods. Why all this? It’s because leadership has failed to step up to the responsibility of turning a crisis into a creative and popular activity leading to the benefit of all.
In the end, even if eventually vaccinations prove to be effective in saving lives, all lives saved at gunpoint will be dead lives.
By “dead lives” it means hollow lives, meaningless existence and humans raped of any free-will, individual belief and conscience.
And that means Covid-19 has won.
That is the potential danger we are facing: letting Covid-19 win in creating a new normal community of zombies, ghosts, and human robots all driven by government artificial intelligence.
