I said people at my village are lazy – Nujoma

Labour minister Utoni Nujoma said his comments seen as promoting Namibians in the north as more hardworking and calling other people lazy were taken out of context.

He said yesterday that he meant to say that people at his own village, known as the reservation, are lazy.

Reserve is a term used to describe communal areas in regions such as Omaheke, Kunene and Otjozondjupa.”I said my people at my village are lazy [and] that they should not expect the government to build a simple dry toilet for them.

“People in the north are doing it, full stop,” the minister of labour, industrial relations and employment creation yesterday told The Namibian.
“I want my people to be self-reliant and not to expect the government to do everything for them,” he said.

FIRST STATEMENT

Nujoma’s initial remark on Tuesday in parliament was sparked by fellow lawmaker McHenry Venaani, who was motivating his motion on Namibia’s extremely low levels of sanitation.

“Namibia has a major sanitation crisis. According to the World Bank, one in four Namibians do not have access to improved sanitation facilities.

“That means they are forced to defecate in the open. Namibia has the lowest sanitation levels,” the official opposition leader said.

Nujoma disagreed, saying Namibians who live in other parts are too lazy to build pit latrines like those in the northern regions.
“Go to the north, to Owamboland, where families are building their own toilets,” he said.

“But I know my people here,” he continued.
“When I go to the [reservation] there, if you wake up in the middle of the night with diarrhoea, you have to run into the bush over snakes, because people are too lazy to do something,” he said.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Sima Luipert, an activist in the Nama Traditional Leaders Association, says Nujoma’s statement is reflective of the continued coloniality of Namibia’s governance systems and the perceptions that inform those systems.

“German colonialism officially regarded the Nama people as lazy and useless. Apartheid did the same.

“Mr Nujoma has just confirmed the same perceptions which have glued themselves into governance and resource allocation,” she says.

“Until then, the idea of ‘One Namibia, One Nation’ would remain the self-serving illusion of the privileged,” Luipert says.

Political analyst Joseph Diescho says Namibia lacks a central ideology, which has led to Nujoma’s comments.

“South Africa under Mandela, Zambia under Kaunda, Egypt under Abdel Nasser, and Cuba under Fidel Castro were focusing on that which united them, rather than that which differentiated them from one another.

“In the lack of a focal point on Namibian identity, we go back to our primitive instinct of tribe and fear and finger pointing,” he says.

Diescho says in addition to the apartheid mindset displayed by the minister, his comment speaks to the silent disease of tribalism.

“And that disease can only be cured by a central ideology,” Diescho says.

Another analyst, Ndumba Kamwanyah, says Nujoma borrowed his “ignorant” utterances from the colonial and apartheid books.

“Remember, colonists viewed blacks as lazy. So here we are, 32 years after independence, with a minister using the same approach,” he says.

Kamwanyah says he wants the minister to show the country where he worked hard.

“In this country we have ‘nepo’ (nepotism) children who make it because of their family name, political influence and connections.
“But they have convinced themselves that their achievements are because of hard work,” he says.

Kamwanyah says Nujoma should be held accountable for his words.

“So I’m not saying he must be suspended, but I’m saying there has to be some sort of accountability, and more in particular, he needs to apologise to the public, not just withdraw [his utterances] in parliament,” he says.

The Presidency yesterday told The Namibian that president Hage Geingob opted not to speak on Nujoma’s comments, saying he does not provide commentary on parliamentary debates and discussions.

“That would amount to undue interference by the executive in the legislative branch of government. It is contrary to the doctrine of separation of powers, which president Hage Geingob continues to uphold,” press secretary Alfredo Hengari said.

Political analyst Rui Tyitende said Nujoma has a history of making comments that are insensitive.

“The remarks are reckless, irresponsible and dangerous,” he says.

The analyst believes Namibia is a divided society and Nujoma is a symptom of the problem.

“It is important to note that the invocation of ‘One Namibia, One Nation’ and the ‘policy of national reconciliation’ has been and continues to be an elite pact that has failed to cascade down to ordinary citizens,” he says.

Tyitende further questions the fruits of Nujoma’s labour.

“What ‘hard work’ has Utoni Nujoma executed to have more than N$40 million in savings?” he asks.