P T SHIPALE
I. PROLOGUE
Once again, let me repeat here that it is as if the departure of the Founding President was well-orchestrated by the ancients of days for his burial to take place on the 1st of March 2025 coinciding with the day on which he crossed the border fence into the British Bechuanaland Protectorate, on the 1st of March 1960. The 1st of March 1994, it was the re-integration of Walvis Bay and the offshore islands to Namibia.
There is also the date of 21st March. In a bid to test South Africa’s claims at the International Court of Justice at The Hague that Namibians in exile were free to return, Founding President Nujoma, accompanied by former President Hifikepunye Pohamba, chartered a plane to Windhoek. On arrival at the airport, they were arrested and deported back to Zambia on 21st March 1966. On 21st March 1990, Founding President Nujoma was sworn in as the First President of the Republic of Namibia and he stepped down on 21st March 2005, handing over the instruments of power to his successor, H.E. President Hifikepunye Pohamba, in a peaceful democratic transition.
Numbers have long been considered the language of the divine, a cosmic script through which the higher forces communicate. The recent journey of Namibia’s first President, transported by a vehicle marked DF 592, is one such moment—an encoded message from the unseen realms. Let us decipher the message:• D (4) and F (6): • 592 → 5 + 9 + 2 = 16 → 1 + 6 = 7: • Total sum: 4 + 6 + 5 + 9 + 2 = 26 → 2 + 6 = 8: The number 8 speaks of infinity, power, and the unbreakable cycle of life, death, and rebirth. This numerical sequence is no accident. It marks a moment of profound spiritual significance—a passage, a closing of an era, and the dawn of something new, signaling a shift, a moment where the old must return to the cosmic order so that the new may rise.
This reminds us that nothing is lost, only transformed. The journey of the Founding President and Father of the Namibian Nation has not ended; it has merely shifted to another plane, continuing in ways we cannot yet perceive. This is the wisdom of the numbers, the language of the universe. Whether one calls it destiny, divine will, or cosmic rhythm, the message is clear: the cycle turns, the spirit rises, and the legacy endures.
According to Antonio Gramsci, an Italian political theorist and activist, one of his most quoted phrases is his 1930 statement in the Prison Notebooks that says ‘the crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. Indeed, the morbid symptoms (‘fenomeni morbosi’) appear because the interregnum between the dying old and the still born or not yet born signals the end of an old era and the rebirth of a new era, sprouting and blossoming with a thousand flowers and forests as the seed has to die for its roots to grow deep and be reborn.
I see a pattern of three here. Like an Atom which consists of protons (positive charge), neutrons (no charge), and electrons (negative charge), the pattern of three repeats itself with the birth, the death and resurrection. The pattern of three is also seen with his three surviving siblings; three surviving children and three Heads of State who attended his burial at Heroes’ Acre.
Surely the Founding President’s absence has left a deafening silence across the length and breadth of our country but as President Nangolo Mbumba rightly pointed out, quoting the words of Ruth Castel-Branco, “A people cannot bid farewell to their history”. Indeed, we cannot bid farewell to Founding President Nujoma as he is Namibia’s past, present and future. We can only celebrate his life and his achievements.
I am also glad that President Nangolo Mbumba did not over elaborate on where, when and how he met Founding President Nujoma, unlike those with the loudest and deafening sounding bells of self-glorification telling us how and where they met the Founding President, including those who never set foot in his Office but were shouting the loudest for the gallery driven by possession as opposed to purpose. I therefore concur with President Nangolo Mbumba when he said “Throughout his life, Sam Nujoma exhibited the traits of a man driven by purpose and destiny”.
Indeed, only an extraordinary personality could rise from the humble dwellings of Etunda to lead a nation to independence. Only an extraordinary personality could traverse from a dusty village to the hallways of the United Nations. Only an extraordinary personality could rise from relative obscurity and end up rubbing shoulders with some of the most iconic leaders of the 20th century and join the pantheon of all-time great revolutionaries and legendary leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere of Tanzania, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Ahmed Ben-Bella of Algeria, Modibo Keïta of Mali, Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea Conakry, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Dr António Agostinho Neto of Angola, Samora Machel of Mozambique, Amílcar Cabral of Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé And Príncipe, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Nelson Mandela of South Africa.
Those leaders shaped his Pan-Africanist ideas but little is known of people such as the journalist, radical activist, and theoretician, George Padmore (1901-1959) from Trinidad and Tobago who did more than perhaps any other single individual to shape the theory and discourse of Pan-African anti-imperialism in the first half of the twentieth century. George Padmore spent his final years in newly independent Ghana as an advisor and mentor to Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah and is credited with the famous mantle of Kwame Nkrumah when he said “Ghana’s independence was meaningless unless it is linked up with total liberation of the African continent”.
In his eulogy, we heard that President Nujoma attended the All-African People’s Conference organized by President Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, where he also met Patrice Lumumba and Josef Kasavubu from the Congo, as well as Frantz Fanon representing the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN). Indeed, Frantz Omar Fanon (20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961) was a French Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the fields of post-colonial studies and critical theory. As well as being an intellectual, Fanon was a political radical, Pan-Africanist, and Marxist humanist concerned with the psychopathology of colonization and the human, social, and cultural consequences of decolonization.
Fanon has been described as “the most influential anticolonial thinker of his time”. He wrote the books “Black Skin, White Masks” in which he psychoanalyzes the oppressed black person who is perceived to have to be a lesser creature in the white world that they live in, and studies how they navigate the world through a performance of Whiteness. Most importantly, Fanon is known for his book “The Wretched of the Earth (1961, Les damnés de la terre)”, in which he defends the right of a colonized people to use violence to gain independence.
Little wonder, it was in Algeria that President Nujoma acquired weapons in 1963 when he opened SWAPO’s office in Algiers at the invitation of Ahmed Ben-Bella, the first Prime Minister of Independent Algeria. President Nujoma used that opportunity to lobby for military assistance for SWAPO and was given four weapons, two ‘pepesha’ sub-machine guns and two ‘TT’ pistols with spare magazines, which he carried in a bag all the way from Algeria to Dar-es-Salaam and SWAPO was able to launch the Armed Struggle with those weapon on 26 August 1966 at Omugulu-gwOmbashe.
It was also in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania where another Pan-Africanist from the Caribbean was working. I am referring to none other than Walter Anthony Rodney (23 March 1942 – 13 June 1980) who was a Guyanese historian, political activist and academic. His notable works include “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”, first published in 1972. Rodney travelled widely and became known internationally as an activist, scholar and formidable orator. He taught at the University of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania during the periods 1966–67 and 1969–1974. He worked closely with President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.
Little wonder again that it was in Tanzania where the OAU set up the African Liberation Committee, the OAU’s Co-ordinating Committee for the Liberation of Africa, with Headquarters in Dar-es-Salaam. In 1961, after the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, President Mwalimu Kambarange Julius Nyerere formed the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East, Central and Southern Africa, known as PAFMECSA, which played an important role by uniting the African Liberation Movements and provided them with camps in Kongwa, Morogoro and Nachingwea.
In the Southern African liberation struggles 1960–1994 SADC, Hashim Mbita Project, Contemporaneous Documents edited by Arnold J. Temu and Joel das N. Tembe, it is written that from 1964, when it was first granted by the Tanzanian government to OAU recognized liberation movements, Kongwa camp has been a key site in Southern Africa’s exile history. First SWAPO and FRELIMO, and later the ANC, MPLA and ZAPU, inhabited neighbouring sites near the town of Kongwa in central Tanzania, where they trained their respective members in guerrilla tactics and prepared to infiltrate their countries of origin. The ANC later moved to Morogoro camp while FRELIMO went to Nachingwea camp.
II ANECDOTE
President Nangolo Mbumba said when he recalls Founding President Sam Nujoma, he marvels at his abilities and his innate talent and how this man, born in a small Namibian village, ended up becoming one of the greatest revolutionary leaders of his time.
He has left his revolutionary footprints across the continent and the world at large. When all seemed lost, he showed us the way. When things seemed dark, he illuminated a path to victory. He was the immovable rock, the cornerstone of Namibia’s revolution and pursuit for development for each one of us. A man who stood tall in the eye of the storm. A man of principle who never compromised to the very end.
President Mbumba was correct when he said Founding President Nujoma was a product of his time, born in an era when the apartheid scourge in the then South-West Africa began. It was within this milieu, that he was taught the values of iron discipline, stoic endurance, decisiveness, daring determination and fearlessness by his maternal grandfather Kondombolo ya Kambulua- a trained fighter and noted herbalist, who grew up in Uukwambi during the reign of Chief Nujoma ua Heelu, and by his father Utoni Daniel Nujoma, a noted sprinter and celebrated hunter. These values laid the foundation for his grandeur from traditional boyhood, to legendary statesman.
For instance, during the severe drought of early 1940s, Founding President Nujoma learnt to be self-reliant and tough. His father made sure that he was properly trained and prepared both mentally and physically. He had to go through all the ethnic and tribal rituals, with the purpose that as a man he would be able to undertake initiatives and succeed in the most difficult missions. He was told to be responsible and to be able to look after himself.
That is why he journeyed to the salt pan known as Ekango ljo Mongua. He also journeyed to cattle post in Uukwambi district and was given a fire torch with which he had to guide the cattle to follow him during the night and it also helped to scare the lions off the cattle and himself. Little did Founding President Nujoma know that those were not really cattle following him but a sea of people following him and the torch of fire was the torch of freedom which symbolizes the beacon of hope for the Namibian people.
In Founding President Nujoma’s words, “no animal could get away if it ran in front of his father’s bow- Once he had taken aim he would shoot to kill, often with a single arrow.” This is the same single-minded focus and relentless pursuit we all came to associate with Founding President Nujoma.
President Nangolo Mbumba said once Founding President Nujoma came face-to-face with the animal called “apartheid settler colonialism,” and saw its widespread havoc of suffering, misery and degradation among Namibians. He made the cause of Namibia’s liberation his one and single highest priority and calling.
He mobilized all Namibian citizens from across tribes, regions and religious affiliations, as well as friendly governments and organizations, to relentlessly hunt down over 24 years this “animal of apartheid settler colonialism,” which he brought down with a thunderous fall on March 21, 1990, our Independence Day.
III. EPILOGUE
Suffice to say that the passing of Founding President Nujoma signals the end of an era and the beginning of a new era with President-elect Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah taking the instruments of power on the 21st March 2025. I am glad that I was finally revendicated by the Vice-President and President-elect when she confirmed that she was called by Founding President Nujoma at his Office to support her candidacy for the Party’s Vice-President’s position in 2022.
I vividly remember that on Tuesday, 06th February 2024, H.E. Dr Hifikepunye Pohamba, former President of the Republic of Namibia, paid a courtesy call on the Founding President at his residence in Windhoek. On Wednesday, 7th February 2024, Uncle Helao Vinia Ndadi, a Veteran of the National Liberation Struggle, also paid a courtesy call on the Founding President at his residence. This was followed, on the same day, by a courtesy call by H.E. Dr. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Vice-President of the Republic of Namibia and Vice-President of SWAPO Party, where her candidacy for last year November elections was confirmed by the Founding President and I took a picture of the two leaders to memorialize the occasion, unlike those were saying the Office used his official stamp and faked his signature to endorse the candidacy of Vice-President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah.
Some of us took very strong exceptions to those insinuations and allegations which bordered on defamation and character assassination. However, we have no grudges and it is now water under the bridge. Thank God the Founding President stood by our side and told us not to waver but stand strong and firm knowing that we stand by the truth and as Amilcar Cabral said “Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories…”
As we commemorate the remarkable human being, in the person of Founding President Nujoma, I am honoured I was able to work under him and for him when he personally called me to his Office and later appointed me as his Senior Special Assistant.
I am equally glad that I stayed with the Founding President until his last day on earth as he rightly told me that I should take him into his old age.
As his Speechwriter, I am glad that I was able to popularize his slogan with which the echoes of his wisdom will resound for eternity when he used to say; “A people united, striving to achieve a common good for all the members of the society, will always emerge victorious!”
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of my employer and this newspaper but solely my personal views as a citizen.
