THE regional governors were appointed after a new law and much was said before and after the fact.
Need I say more? Some were new faces to public duty at this level while some are not as new as they were recycled and reassigned to new regions. My former student Clinton Swartbooi was given one of the mineral-rich regions of Namibia, Karas, and, my brother Cleophas Mutjavikua was assigned to Erongo Region. Veendapi McLeod is one of those who returned to the same office in the same region while Samuel Nuuyoma retained the portfolio but moved to the capital to coordinate the most politically prominent region of the country. I take this opportunity to wish them all, only the best in their new assignment. Among the governors features a political stalwart, an unwavering leader in civil society matters and tested pedagogue by name Joshua Hoëbeb. Think of Joshua Hoëbeb and many names spring to mind. Meester Bock, Pastor Kamho, Pastor Naholo, Pastor Kameeta, Jefta Tjozongoro, Phillip Tjerije, Kuzeeko Kangueehi. In another of his lives feature names such as Niko Bessinger, Bella Cupido, Mokganedi Tlhabanello, Rehabeam Kamehozu, Thomas Ihuhua, Comrade Kabinet, Fleming Aspara, Dave Smuts, Hartmut Ruppel, Anton Lubowski, Solomon Gamatham, Kuzaune Tjijenda, Meekulu Kondo, Lucia Hamutenya, Sii Maha, Ida Hofmann, Comrade Donkey and, I stop here: Comrade Maxuilili. Yes, those days were different in more ways than one for they were filled with complete devotion to national duty and there was love among our national leaders. Once Cross Currents carried a tribute to Bobby Samaria and the column was criticised for paying tribute to somebody who was still alive. That misplaced disapproval was rooted in the Namibian experience that teaches us to only recognise heroes once they die. During the struggle we organised petrol-drum political rallies and people would stream from around the country to hear our leaders speak about the apartheid situation. The mainstay of the week would be a stage shared by speakers such as Kameeta, Mokganedi Thlabanello, Joshua Hoëbeb, Rikumbi Kandanga, Ida Jimmy, and Jesriel Taapopi, mixed in with Daniel Tjongarero as chairman. Joshua Hoëbeb was imbued with a hot tongue coated in bitter language that invoked deep hatred among members of the South African police at almost every Swapo rally he addressed. Oluno/Okatana rallies carry striking testimony. He spoke at a rally near Rundu chaired by Marco Hausiku and it culminated in pandemonium. Police helicopters hovered above the crowds with a voice dropping through loud-hailers: ‘Daar is hy, skiet hom…!’ Marco controlled the crowds. He mingled among the sea of people with a megaphone and pleaded: ‘Do not run away… hold hands and bow your heads.’ The crowds obeyed, comrades formed a human shield around Joshua Hoëbeb somewhere in the crowd. Hoëbeb was saved and there were no major incidents.In Katutura there was the shooting at Hoëbeb. There was a learners’ strike at the Augustineum High School. Hoëbeb and I were on the school committee and we gathered at my house in Soweto to contemplate actions of the following day. Among those in attendance were Tives Mbako and Eeperi Ngaujake. Somebody rushed into the meeting and alerted us that a hit squad was on its way to finish me off. We had abandoned the meeting and crossed the road to make a telephone call from Othniel Kazombiaze’s house, when the squad arrived in a fourteen-seater white Toyota minibus. Hoëbeb tried to quietly make off and there was a chase. Three bullets hit the car, but Hoëbeb came out unscathed. The week that followed had us all bottled with rage. One afternoon I arrived at Hoëbeb’s house in Freedom Square. He looked much depressed and I wondered what had happened. He exclaimed in his soft-spoken style, but with evident anger: ‘Man, my ma het my kwaad gemaak.’He had kept a firearm, some Tokarev or Makarov or whatever the thing was, in his boxes of books at his mother’s house on the fringes of Gemengde and Nama Lokasie. As if impelled by divine powers, his mother one day decided to go through his boxes and when she discovered the firearm, she dropped it down the man-hole cover of the ablution block behind the house. That is how my comrade lost this hard-gained item that he had kept just in case. When he asked the mother why she had done that she only said: ‘Ek soek jou nie in die tronk nie. Ek het genoeg probleme.’There are so many pages on my mind about this humble and soft-spoken man with the heart of a lion, but the space is limited. Congratulations Meester. I wish you the best that you have given this nation and think of me when you have a driver’s job available – I live in some Reservaat in Omaheke Region!
