FORMER Swapo Party Youth League leader Elijah Ngurare says he has no plans of returning to his former position because his job and age do not allow him to.
Ngurare, a quality assurance officer and part-time lecturer at the University of Namibia’s José Eduardo dos Santos campus at Ongwediva, says he is fighting for former youth league spokesperson Job Amupanda, Dimbulukeni Nauyoma and George Kambala.
Now 46, Ngurare was expelled from the party in July 2015 together with Amupanda, Nauyoma and Kambala for what Swapo secretary general Nangolo Mbumba said was incompatible conduct.
The Windhoek High Court, however, ordered Swapo to reinstate the quartet in July this year although the order did not specify whether they were to take up their former positions.
“I do not miss my position. It would be wrong to say that. It would be wrong to seem like we are begging. We have not notified our employers that we do not want the positions anymore although we had been given the mandate to complete our terms,” he says, adding that he is old and the young ones need to take over.
Saying that he remains unshaken, Ngurare told The Namibian that he survived nine attempts to expel him during his time at the helm of the youth league.
He said these attempts failed because the quartet had the support of elders in the villages who prayed for him and his comrades as well as some within the top hierarchy of the party who felt they were being victimised.
“We felt this overwhelming support that came to our aid. We believe more than anything that the support came to Swapo to save it from those who wanted to destroy it. Swapo is a rule-based organisation and not an emotionally ruled one,” he says.
Ngurare said nobody should talk about them as not being in their former positions because there was no special central committee meeting that decided it.
“It is a constitutional issue. We were not elected by the politburo or central committee of Swapo. We were elected by the congress of the youth league so it is only that congress that can say this is where we end. They need a firing squad to kill us and then they can take our positions,” he adds.
Ngurare said former President Hifikepunye Pohamba, for exmaple, called for a special central committee meeting to announce his resignation as party president.
“That is constitutional. How does one speak with a straight face that we are no longer in those positions? We know that they do not like us. Is it on the basis of some people having become Jesus or is it abuse of power? Rules and laws were not followed.”
Ngurare also says he committed about 10 years of his life to the youth league not because of money or prosperity but because of the calling to serve the party and country.
Still unapologetic, Ngurare says he would still support and believe in the things he was expelled for if another opportunity arises because he cannot praise-sing.
He further says he will never surrender the youth whom he has groomed and who know no other party but Swapo.
“To say I regret what I did is the worst thing ever. Nauyoma was the youngest district secretary in the history of SPYL Tobias Hainyeko branch under my leadership.
“He worked hard to ensure that we win Tobias Hainyeko even when some hibernators were trying to destroy the popularity of Swapo. And no one suspended him for doing a good job because he was doing it for them to be elected.
“Kambala has been a leader in the Samora Machel and Moses Garoëb branch where he organised for us to camp and talk to people about their needs. We went to sleep there in the winter. McHenry Venaani copied that from us.
“Our people came and they told us their challenges and that they were drinking from the sewerage. We compiled all these and gave them to government. Amupanda worked hard for SPYL and he was voted as the top performer in the central committee and that is how he became secretary for information. They all worked under me,” Ngurare says.
As a leader, he explains, one cannot betray the needs and calling of the youth and that Namibia’s resources cannot be auctioned off.
Ngurare also says the SPYL was not established to be a pastor kind of organisation with submissive members who clap hands at every turn but to be an active militant revolutionary wing.
“If you see something is right you can compliment it but if it is wrong, you cannot keep quiet. It was not easy for the [Sam] Nujoma era to defy elders because they also had elders but when they decided to fight the apartheid regime, I am sure they also had to go against their elders,” Ngurare further explains.
Those in power, he continued, are not elected to be worshipped unless the constitution says so. Ngurare says he believes that when the youth show elders what the problem is, the elders should not feel threatened.
“There is a saying in Oshiwambo, kuna mitanda kuna eengobe. You should take pride when young people are pointing things out in the spirit of nation building,” he explains.
Amupanda, Nauyoma and Kambala, he adds, have always maintained their commitment and dedication and adherence to Swapo.
“When they expelled us they thought we would die. They wanted to humiliate us. The problem is that there is no university of common sense. If one does not have it, it is difficult to acquire it,” he explains.
The expulsion had nothing to do with love or hate, he says, because if that was the case why did people support them at the courts?
