National leaders vs national vampires
By Victor Angula /
If you look you can easily notice that despite the fact that Namibia has so many national leaders, none of them ever talks about national interests.
Be it at parliament or at Cabinet, politically speaking nobody ever talks about the interests of Namibia today and tomorrow.
Despite the changing political and economic environments of the modern world, our leaders never find a chance at all to emphatically declare that the Namibian people will never sacrifice their core national interests including the country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, national security and development interests.
Right now the Swapo Party has candidates jostling for the favour of fellow comrades so that at the Party’s congress that will take place in the coming weeks, one may be elected to the Party’s Central Committee and to the top four positions.
But of all these who want to be elected to the Central Committee of the ruling party and the head of the party (and ultimately to the helm of the nation), none is talking about national interests. They are talking about all kinds of things. Some are even just talking about their struggle credentials.
Or making statements with such puerile and childish terms as: “Dear Cde. As a CC candidate, I need your support at the Congress. I am ready to work hard for a stronger Swapo Party and a better Namibia. Regards, Cde Iipumbu Shiimi.”
“If we pull resources, both human and material, together we can achieve much more. As the Swapo Party Vice President I will be part of a collective dedicated to be of service to our people. Vote Cde Saara for Vice President.”
Or even worse: “Vote Cde Petrina Haingura for Swapo Party Central Committee. Uphold and defend the Constitution, inclusive leadership, advance unity of purpose.”
Nobody is talking with any conviction about the fact that Namibia must come first before anything else.
And that is a symptom of a failing nation. When a nation has national leaders who have no interests of the nation at heart, that is how you see that such a nation is going down the drain.
If you look at the speeches of President Hage Geingob, the speeches are empty of the words “national interest”.
Leaders are elected to worry about the nation’s interests. But in Namibia nobody worries about national interests.
All of us have personal interests. We wake up everyday to pursue personal goals, and before we go to sleep at night we spend many hours worrying about our own personal interests. It’s not wrong.
But a nation also has its interests. So who worries about the nation’s interests?
Namibia has so many politicians, who come with different tags, or same-but-different labels, but there is not even one who can be put in the category of ‘nationalist’.
A leader is someone who assumes a responsibility to think, talk, plan, and worry about the interests of a group, rather than worrying just about his own interests.
A national leader (which includes not only the President but also those at Parliament and at Swapo’s national structures) is only a leader of that nation if he is on a daily basis worrying about the nation’s interests.
In short, you must be a nationalist.
In everything, the interests of your nation must come first. This is why every time you speak or write anything, the most common words associated with you are ‘nation’, ‘our nation’, and ‘in the best interest of Namibia’.
And as you talk the talk at every opportunity emphasising that the nation must come first, you also walk the talk by spending less time at things which are meant to advance your own personal interests.
Or else you’re not a national leader but just a national nuisance, national disgrace, national parasite and vampire that is around just to suck the blood out of the nation by collecting a salary from the state without worrying at all about the interests of the nation.
– Victor Angula is the editor of Omutumwa News Online. He can be reached at victorangula@yahoo.com
