Liberation hero Hage Geingob hailed
Publish date: 05 February 2024
Issue Number: 1062
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: Obituary
Namibia’s President Hage Geingob died in Windhoek on Sunday. He was 82. Geingob, who was serving his second term, revealed last month that he was receiving treatment for cancer. First elected President in 2014, Geingob was Namibia’s longest serving Prime Minister and third President. In 2013, Geingob underwent brain surgery, and last year he underwent an aortic operation in SA. ‘The Namibian nation has lost a distinguished servant of the people, a liberation struggle icon, the chief architect of our Constitution and the pillar of the Namibian house,’ said Acting President Nangolo Mbumba, according to The Citizen. He said the Cabinet would convene immediately to make the necessary state arrangements. News24 reports that Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has become the country’s first female Vice-President. She was appointed by Mbumba who has taken charge until November, when the country is set to hold its general election. The governing South West Africa People's Organisation last year elected Nandi-Ndaitwah as its presidential candidate. Ahead of her appointment, Nandi-Ndaitwah urged Namibians to unite in honour of the late leader. Geingob was the first head of state to die in office in Namibia and the 19th in Africa in the past 25 years. His predecessors, 95-year-old Samuel Nujoma and Hifikepunye Pohamba (88) are still alive.
Regional and international heads of state have started sending their condolence messages to the Namibian Government and the Geingob family. Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi described Geingob as a ‘true friend of Botswana’. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa said: ‘President Geingob's leadership and resilience will be remembered’, while the DRC's Felix Tshisekedi said: ‘On behalf of the Congolese people and my behalf, I present our most sincere condolences to the family as well as to the Namibian people.’ Tshisekedi's inauguration in Kinshasa was Geingob's last regional visit. IoL reports that South Africa’s ruling ANC and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) have described Geingob as a revolutionary who fought against apartheid and colonialism. And they note that Geingob came out in full support of SA’s case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip. ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said the late President made a remarkable contribution in the struggle for liberation in his country. ‘He was also committed to international solidarity and justice for Palestinian people, supporting South Africa’s stance in the ICJ and calling out Germany, by reminding the world of the first genocide of the 20th century in Namibia between 1904 and 1908, in which tens of thousands of innocent Namibians died in the most inhumane and brutal conditions,’ said Bhengu-Motsiri. Cosatu spokesperson Matthew Parks said Geingob recently spoke out in support of the case lodged by SA in defence of the Palestinian people, ‘in particular from the current genocide being unleashed by an apartheid Israeli regime and, in support of the right of Palestinian people to an independent state’. He added that he played a pivotal role in the development of the SADC and the integration of the region.
Born in a village in northern Namibia in 1941, Geingob was the southern African country’s first President outside of the Ovambo ethnic group, which makes up more than half the country’s population. He took up activism against SA’s apartheid regime, which at the time ruled over Namibia, before being driven into exile. The Daily Maverick reports that he spent almost three decades in Botswana and the US. In 2007, Geingob became vice-president of the governing Swapo, which he had joined as an agitator for independence when Namibia was still known as South West Africa. The party has remained in power and unchallenged since independence. The former German colony is technically an upper middle-income country but one with huge disparities in wealth. ‘There were no textbooks to prepare us for accomplishing the task of development and shared prosperity after independence,’ he said in a speech to mark the day in 2018. ‘We needed to build a Namibia in which the chains of the injustices of the past would be broken.’ Geingob served as Trade & Industry Minister before becoming Prime Minister again in 2012. He won the 2014 election with 87% of the vote but only narrowly avoided a runoff with a little more than half of the votes in a subsequent poll in November 2019. The Conversation notes that Geingob entered office at a difficult time. The country faced fiscal constraints and a period of serious droughts, followed by the traumatic impact of Covid. Consequently, the socio-economic track record under him was at best mixed. On balance, his governance was characterised by a considerable gap between promises and delivery. Under Geingob a decline of ethics became visible, manifested spectacularly in a corruption scandal in the fishing industry. It became the synonym of state capture. Fighting corruption became Geingob’s mantra, but it had little credibility in the eyes of the wider public.
