By Elijah Ngurare
The people have spoken in November 2009. They have done so unambiguously clear to grant our SWAPO Party 2/3 majority in parliament and to govern Namibia for the next five years.This also means that our people have confidence in the Election Manifesto of the SWAPO Party. Nothing more nothing less! However, our people did not stand in long queues so that those deployed to implement the Election Manifesto should become apologetics to the electoral loosers. Neither did our people vote us to allay the fears of Washington DC, Paris, Berlin or London. Equally, our people did not vote us so that we can elucidate the difficulties of governance or the sophistication of the English language. They did not vote for us in order to govern for others in the name of good governance or other meaningless jargons of Margret Thatcher’s Westminster. Instead, our people voted for us to deliver on the realistic programmes and policies we have adopted as part of the Election Manifestos. H.E. President Pohamba is lauded in saying that if there are laws we find inhibiting in delivering the services to our people, such laws, policies or regulations must either be removed or reformed.
In this regard, Youth Empowerment in all its manifestations; Rural Development in all its manifestations; genuine economic empowerment in all its manifestations require that we become bold and unafraid in adopting such implementation strategies and techniques necessary to actualize the wishes of the 2009 SWAPO Party Election Manifesto. Once again, those comrades who will be deployed as Ministers and Deputy Ministers must form an army of fearless cadres who must deliver on the implementation of the 2009 Election Manifestos, without fail. We shall wait keenly on how this performance will come into being. Are there some who would be transformed by the offices they would hold to forget how they got there or are there those who will climb the ladder and become arrogant of those peasants who voted for them. Time will tell and we shall wait and see.
For now, it is imperative to make a few observations. It is said that Yours Truly has handlers and Asser Ntinda also has handlers around him. Similarly, Dr. Ben Mulongeni is also said to have handlers. Be that as it may, who are the handlers of those accusing us of having handlers? Who are the handlers of The Namibian newspaper; who are the handlers of Informante; who are the handlers of NBC and who are the handlers of The Windhoek Observers? Your guess is as good as mine, but what is clear is that their individual and collective doing is not theirs alone.
Let us take the example of the so-called “jobs for comrades”. This is an illusion which was exclusively coined by The Namibian newspaper for reasons known to itself. For all we know there is no such thing, if it were so, all those areas that have voted resoundingly for the SWAPO Party will have all its inhabitants being employed by the SWAPO Party Government Ministries/Offices/Agencies exclusively. Nothing of the sort has happened. Fear has been infused in the minds of some cadres instead of empowering our people we think that doing so is “jobs for comrades”, but why has the same newspaper not been vocal about those hibernating to weaken and destroy the system? Who doesn’t know that as things stand many hibernators are currently being promoted at the expense of Party cadres. In some Ministries/Agencies/Offices it is a curse to belong to SWAPO Party. A certain Acting CEO was this week quoted as saying that “as CEO he is angered that some of his decisions may be questioned by the ruling party”. Thanks God he/she is just acting, if he were to be permanent this would be the likes that newspapers like The Namibian would glorify on its SMS page. Besides who is to say that the media in our country is democratic when it comes to their views against SWAPO Party. For instance, over 600,000 people voted for SWAPO Party in the just ended elections, yet when you read the SMS page of The Namibian newspaper, an impression is created that the people of Namibia do not like SWAPO Party. Apparently a “selection of messages are published” but each person spent a N$1 to send such messages albeit anonymously: who decide which dollar is worth publishing?
Take the NBC for example, the President would be speaking for say 10 minutes or more but his speech would be summed up in 3 seconds to the Namibian people. Is this still “informing and educating” the Namibian people? And still some in NBC are paid to determine on whom the camera should be focused and forget altogether the pursuance of the statutory vision and mission of the public broadcaster. As a Party we have our own newspaper, Namibia Today, yet major decisions of the Party are found in other media outlets first, before same appearing in Namibia Today. We can give lipservice to advertising ban in The Namibian newspaper but yet we buy and read it religiously. Of course, nothing wrong to buy and read it, but why pretend that we are reading what we hate?
In the final analysis, our mission must be to listen to the people, majority of them who voted for the SWAPO Party. They are not some silent majority hidden somewhere to preserve and protect the interest of the vocal minorities who own and control the media or direct our means of production, no no no, these are human beings who love this country much more than Washington DC, Berlin, London or Paris would ever imagine. To actualize this aspiration, we must implement, without fail, real rural development and youth empowerment programmes. This of necessity must include a deliberate intervention to ensure that all mines, banks and local authorities must be compelled to allocate at least 10% of their shares, profit and land ownership to the youth and rural poor. For sure, the media and vocal minorities will be against this demand and is to be expected. But the government of the people must welcome this with open arms for the sake of sustainability of governance, national interest and security of our revolution.
A luta Continua.
