Geingob disrespected himself – Diescho

PRESIDENT Hage Geingob disrespected himself by lowering his office to pick a fight with a man whom he has already destroyed, said former Namibia Institute of Public Administration and Management (Nipam) chief executive Joseph Diescho in an interview with The Namibian yesterday.

Diescho said Geingob was also debasing the Office of the President by speaking publicly about certain individuals and ridiculing them, while he was supposed to “inspire people to believe in the values of the country”. He was responding to allegations levelled against him by Swapo information secretary Hilma Nicanor, who claimed that Diescho disrespected and insulted Geingob by calling him a tribalist.

This came after claims by Diescho that he was discussed, insulted and ridiculed by Geingob at the party’s central committee meeting at Rundu on 25 August.

Diescho claimed that the President described him as “a fool that he had to remove from Nipam”.

“He went on to say that he needed to say that I was a failed fool at Rundu, where I came from,” the academic claimed.

The ruling party yesterday called a media briefing to address Diescho’s allegations on social media.

Yesterday’s event was the first of its kind since the conclusion of the party’s 6th elective congress in November last year.

Althought the media and other ordinary people in attendance at the briefing yesterday enquired about matters of national interest, Swapo information secretary Nicanor did not address any of the issues raised.

She said the media conference, her first as information secretary, was solely to defend Geingob, who was allegedly disrespected and insulted by people who called him a tribalist.

Nicanor said the President was not “the type of person to be labelled a tribalist”.

“As secretary for information and mobilisation, my portfolio requires and demands that we also defend the party, its leadership, when it comes to these types of things.

We felt that this situation is going too far. Our President cannot just be labelled and insulted by individuals. We cannot just have people making these types of allegations and we just look on and keep quiet without challenging such individuals,” she stated.

“It does not mean that when we called this gathering to express ourselves on those allegations, it gives lesser importance to the issues that we have raised. They are being addressed by the Swapo-led government,” she added. Diescho yesterday maintained that Geingob had called him a “fool” during the central committee meeting.

He said that he did not disrespect the President, nor did he refer to him as a tribalist, adding that Geingob’s behaviour was “very unfortunate, and he knows that is not presidential”.

“Four people called me, and told me that during that meeting, the President deviated from the agenda and singled out an individual, and ridiculed and scandalised that individual as a fool,” he stated.

“The President disrespected himself by lowering his office to pick a fight with a man he has already destroyed. A head of state does not speak about individuals. A head of state inspires people to believe in the values of the country. I did not call him a tribalist. In fact, he is not guilty of tribalism, but some of his behaviour promotes tribalistic understanding and interpretations,” he stressed.

Diescho said this was not the first time that the President had labelled him a tribalist and a fool. According to him, Geingob “called me a tribalist during the 2017 Independence [Day] celebrations at Rundu. In 2016, the President talked about me to the army at Grootfontein as a tribalist”.

“He identified me as a threat to the army. Once the President has identified a threat by naming a person, any troop in the army can take action to eliminate the threat. I am not a tribalist. If I said that Kavango is not fully represented in [the] government, that is a fact, I am not making it up,” he reiterated.