Local government leaders must respect people
By Victor Angula /
As we move towards the upcoming Regional and Local Government elections, I want to emphasise the fact that this election is particularly important because it is an election to put people in political office, who will be there primarily to serve the people.
Politicians at the regional and local government levels are in a better position to serve the people because they are closer to the people, at the same level of the people, and they can understand the situation and feel the pain of the people better than those politicians at the national level could.
In Namibia, why this has never been the case, I don’t know why. I don’t know why regional and local politicians have never really come to a point of being seen to understand the situation of the people and to feel the pain of the people.
That, perhaps, is because they don’t respect the people. You only feel the pain of the people you respect.
Politicians always find it hard to respect poor people – except when it’s election time.
Politicians must respect the people because the people are the greatest asset of a nation. A country will rise only as high as the capability of its people to rise up to the challenges of national construction, democratic governance and productivity in the marketplace.
And the real training for national construction, democratic governance and productivity in the marketplace takes place at local level. Local government level is the training ground for democracy, free enterprise and nationalism.
When there is no conducive environment for these to take place, then what will happen is tribalism, inability to make a good use of the free market and failure of democratic institutions all across the bottom to the top levels of this nation.
A failed state is a result of this. A failed state has failed, not as a result of anything at the national level; a state fails because of the situation at the local level.
When the level has failed which is supposed to be the training ground for capable soldiers of the free market, soldiers of democratic governance, soldiers of national construction, then nothing can be done at the top level to rectify the situation.
New presidents can be elected again and again, but nothing changes where poverty and the suffering of the people is concerned.
But when the leaders at local government are using political power to transform society by providing a public service and service to humanity at their towns, wonderful towns and majestic cities can be constructed and nations can become great – and the world can become a better place for all.
This can only be possible when those elected to serve in the local political offices of the nation go to work everyday primarily to serve the people. You only serve the people if you respect them and you see them as human beings who are worthy and deserve to be served.
Without this, anyone can only be elected to office where they will think of themselves before thinking of the people.
– Victor Angula is the editor of Omutumwa News Online. He can be reached at victorangula@yahoo.com
