Gwen Lister reflects on Nujoma’s complex legacy as Namibia’s chief architect of independence

Namibian journalist Gwen Lister has described Sam Nujoma as one of Namibia’s chief architect and a leader who left a complex legacy.

Nujoma, Lister recalls, was a man who obsessed about Namibia gaining independence.

“While Nujoma’s name will always be writ large as the chief architect of our independence, the role of many other Swapo stalwarts who more than did their part in the struggle for a free Namibia will be overlooked unless historians timeously right those wrongs,” she says.
Nujoma died on Saturday. He was 95.

Lister, one of only a few journalists who had access to Nujoma during the struggle years, witnessed how he wielded power in exile and after independence.

She says Nujoma was “arguably more effective and history will remember him to a greater extent for his role as the leader of a liberation movement, rather than as the president of the country from 1990 to 2005, as his autocratic tendencies would never translate well in a democratic environment”.

Lister says his singular drive and determination to rid the country of its colonisers during the struggle era is beyond question.

Although, she said, “this too was marred by his often unforgiving attitude towards opposition, manifesting in his crackdown on those involved in the Shipanga rebellion in 1975/6, which had pushed for the election of new leadership in the movement, as well as the revelations of imprisonment, torture and killings of Swapo detainees in the Lubango dungeons”.

NUJOMA AND POWER

Lister says Nujoma was impenetrable.

“People often described the late Hidipo Hamutenya as an inscrutable person. But if Hamutenya played his cards close to his chest, then Sam Nujoma was even more impenetrable and probably the most opaque politician I have ever had to interview,” she says.

In 1989 Lister did one of the only wide-ranging interviews with the then Swapo leader, who talked about the start of the armed struggle, among other matters, as well as his abortive and brief return to Namibia in 1966 along with Hifikepunye Pohamba, and their subsequent arrest and deportation.

He would speak with eagerness about the struggle years, but became tight-lipped when faced with questions about anything controversial, such as the Swapo detainee saga or the mysterious death in exile of Tauno Hatuikulipi, among others.

Of the Swapo leadership trio in the struggle era, Lister says former president Hage Geingob – compared to both Hamutenya and Nujoma – was an open book, always gregarious, outgoing and approachable.

“Yet Nujoma could be engaging when he wanted to be, and what struck me most as a young reporter in 1981, meeting for the first time and later interviewing the Swapo leader, was his unquestioning love of country – something that even bordered on obsession, for he would talk about little else back in those years,” she says.

“If I happened to be staying in the same hotel as him, on several occasions at some ungodly hour I would receive a call from his aide to say he wanted to talk.

“Barely awake, let alone prepared to engage so early in the morning, I’d have to pull myself together and answer a plethora of questions about Namibia: What various parts of the country looked like, had there been infrastructural developments in certain areas, what were the Turnhalle ‘puppets’ up to, how were the ‘Boers’ targeting Swapo supporters and those perceived to be allies of the liberation movement, and more.

“Such was his preoccupation with Namibian decolonisation.”

MIXED LEGACY

The former editor says while Nujoma’s commitment to the fight against colonial rule is unquestionable, “his overall legacy is mixed”.
Lister says there are positives, but there are negatives, too.

“Despite expressing a will to one day see Namibia as ‘Africa’s first success story’, as he told me in an interview in the 80s, even with his initial promotion of inclusivity and the policy of national reconciliation immediately after independence, he didn’t always practise what he preached in the years he served as the country’s head of state,” she says.

“Nujoma invariably attacked whites, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other (LGBTQI+) community and the media, instituting a government advertising and purchase ban on The Namibian in 2001.”

This was largely because of the newspaper’s then perceived anti-government stance, as it criticised Nujoma’s decision to militarily assist the late president Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others.

The ban was lifted in 2011 by Namibia’s second president, Hifikepunye Pohamba.

Lister says Nujoma did, however, assist The Namibian in sourcing funds during the liberation struggle.

“Ironically, it was with his sanction in supporting our call for international funding that the newspaper was able to get off the ground in 1985,” she says.

She says it was under Nujoma’s leadership that “the scourge of entitlement took root, as did the culture of jobs for comrades, resulting in broken promises to the masses, and skewed and unequal distribution of the ‘fruits’ of independence”.

Lister recounts that Nujoma’s second and third terms were characterised by an increasing intolerance of criticism.

And yet, “to the surprise of many of his critics, he went quietly in 2005 and did not seek a fourth term in office. It was generally acknowledged, in the decades since, that his presence continued to loom large and was influential, albeit mostly behind the scenes,” she says.

The Namibia Media Trust, a media development and journalism support organisation, also lauds Nujoma’s legacy.

Its executive director, Zoe Titus, says Nujoma’s death marks the loss of a figure “whose impact on our nation is immeasurable – both in the struggle for independence and the formation of our democratic institutions”.

“His vision for a free, independent Namibia, where the right to self-determination and freedom of expression would thrive, guided us to the political independence we celebrate today,” she says.

According to Titus, Nujoma’s legacy, like that of many great leaders, is marked by complexities.

“His decision to ban government advertising in The Namibian in the 1990s represents a painful chapter in the history of media freedom in our country. This action serves as a reminder of the fragility of freedoms we now cherish and the ongoing struggle to preserve those rights.”