By Shivute Kaapanda |
Being a border town with a rural-urban migration going at a fast pace, Oshikango is a dusty but important town in Ohangwena region.
Although known to many as a northern border town, Oshikango is not a town but the 5th suburb of Helao Nafidi Local Authority.
Helao Nafidi was himself a freedom fighter of the SWAPO movement, a commander in the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) who was known for his bravery and strategic thinking as a guerilla fighter who commanded several platoons at the same time.
It is thus in his honor that the Helao Nafidi Local Authority as a collective name for five suburbs, namely Onhuno, Ohangwena, Omafo, Engela, and Oshikango being the fifth, was named after him.
Of the five suburbs, it is Oshikango which is the commercial centre of the Helao Nafidi town. Located right at the border with Angola, the suburb is a hive of business activity which is a result of cross-border trade, mainly by small traders from Angola.
The locals are also active, hustling and hawking all kinds of goods, from selling kapana to illegally selling fuel smuggled from Angola. The level of commercial activity is so complex on the dusty streets of Oshikango, with school children as old as ten years old selling sweets, biscuits and apples at times when they were supposed to be in classrooms.
But a visit in the bowels of Oshikango, in areas where the people live, one is greeted by the picture of hardship and misery.
Being a busy town commercially due to its proximity to the border, children as well as adults are often tempted to get themselves involved in illegal activities such as selling Ngungula fuel (fuel smuggled from Angola) and other prohibited goods from the other side of the Namibian border such as in Santa Clara and Ondjiva towns of Angola.
Life in Oshikango is quite challenging since most of the economic activities taking place are run informally.
Omutumwa’s curiosity however is on the shack dwellings of this northern border town of Helao Nafidi.
Thus the visit leads to the deeply famous informal settlement of Oshipwatapwata in Oshikango.
Ms Amukonda Regina, a 42-year-old unemployed single mother who lives with her daughter and two other female relatives in a 3-bedroom shack home shares her experience in the informal settlement of Oshipwatapwata.
She earns her living by selling daily necessities like biscuits and fish cans from Angola in a small tuckshop. With her income she has to pay for her daughter’s school fees who goes to Elite Tutorial College to improve her grades.
“I have to sell these items that I get from Angola at cheap prices and sell them here in the location to make a living, sometimes there are no customers as many people are selling the same products around the streets,” she laments.
Another resident of Oshipwatapwata location is Nghiimbihafo Hesekiel, a 37-year-old male who sells shoes and cigarettes in the open streets of Oshikango who laments his story to Omutumwa that life is tough on him who is unemployed and a father of six kids.
“I consider myself a hustler because I can sell all types of goods I get from Santa Clara town of Angola and sell them here in Oshikango, Onhuno and Engela; there is no time to rest otherwise I starve with my family, I have to hustle every day,” he says.
Another resident who does not want to have his name revealed tells Omutumwa that he lives by smuggling and selling tobacco from Angola as well as cheap fuel from the neighbouring country.
“Life is bad as many of us don’t have qualifications to find proper jobs and we are exposed to these opportunities of illegal businesses,” he says.
Oshikango was well known as a fast growing and trending northern border town in the years after 2010 when in Angola the US dollar was legal tender. The civil war in Angola had just ended, and Chinese enterprises mushroomed in Oshikango in order to exploit the Angolan market across the border.
But the economy has since declined after the US dollar in Angola was withdrawn some years later. This left the Helao Nafidi’s economy limping as many investors left Oshikango to invest elsewhere.
The informal settlements of Helao Nafidi, particularly in Oshikango, are growing fast day by day as Namibians from nearby villages and from far continue to look for opportunity and better life in the urban area.
Illegal immigrants from Angola also have found temporary shelter in the shacks which make up the most part of informal settlements, leading to the rapid increase of the informal settlement population of Oshikango, putting much pressure on the Helao Nafidi Town Council.
Then Omutumwa makes a turn at the Helao Nafidi Town Council offices with queries on the state of informal settlements at the town. The Chief Executive Officer, Mrs Inge Iipinge says that all media queries should be referred to the Mayor of the Town, Mr Darius Shaalukeni, who, unfortunately, is out of office and whose number has not been reachable until the date for publishing.
In the photo: One of the shacks in Oshipwatapwata informal settlement of Oshikango, in Helao Nafidi town. Next to it is a house being constructed right where a shack of someone used to stand. In another image is the Helao Nafidi Town Mayor, His Worship Hon. Darius Shaalukeni.
[NB. This article was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Omutumwa and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.]
