Takeaways from a former President

EVERY time I think of the place of Sam Nujoma in Namibian politics, I am reminded of a conversation I had with a Swapo party cadre in the late 1990s when Ben Ulenga went on to form CoD.

For this cadre, the analysis of the situation was straightforward: “Your father is your father, even if you disagree with him”. Essentially, Ulenga was “morally wrong” for even if he disagreed with Sam Nujoma, he had an obligation to remain in Swapo.Drawing from the high canon of political science, I naturally felt the obligation to unambiguously oppose that view (and I did) but after a while I realised that it would be an uphill battle to explain to this emotional comrade not to draw unwise analogies between political parties in democracies and traditional father-son or paternalistic relationships.I am quite aware that it will take a far wiser head than mine to contest the view that there are many of us who share such paternal sentiments about the founding President.For that reason, I will venture that there are two pertinent ways in which we can look at the leadership of Sam Nujoma (Petrina Haingura might agree with me on both).One of them is to say that miracles do happen and hope for the repetition of miracles across the board when it comes to the leadership and direction of this country.The second is to say that Sam Nujoma is a unique leader and we have to thank the Lord for our extraordinary luck in having him as our founding President (and some in the ruling party hope that he remains for as long as he can).But these won’t take us far in our pursuit at learning home truths from the founding President.Thus, I will raise two prescient issues that I believe will serve as tangible lessons the moment we look at the leadership of Sam Nujoma.The first admission is that visionary leadership often involves putting aside self-doubt, bucking conventional wisdom, and listening only to an inner voice that tells you the right thing to do.And these qualities were in abundance when we look at the sturdy resolve Sam Nujoma displayed against great odds during the liberation struggle.Equally so, the former President’s record of achievement as President of the country is one we are proud of.So, if one looks at the leadership of Sam Nujoma objectively, one has to concede that it will take a very unsound head to contest the place of Sam Nujoma in the pantheon of eminent African leaders.Then again, the problem is also that bad leadership can also flow from the very same characteristics: steely determination runs the risk of becoming stubbornness; the willingness to flout conventional wisdom can amount to a lack of common sense; the inner voice that ought to tell you what is the right thing to do can become delusional.This is where most of us ought to realise the fact that Sam Nujoma was proven right under a surprising set of circumstances does not necessarily mean that he will be right all the time.It probably does mean, however, that one will be psychologically handicapped in recognising that one is wrong in future cases.In such circumstances, a leader becomes excessively distrustful of anyone who does not share their view and team loyalty trumps open-minded discussion.Machiavelli in his greatest treatise on power ‘The Prince’ argues persuasively that the only way leaders can safeguard themselves against flatterers who swarm in the courts is by letting people understand that they are not offended by the truth.Sadly, I don’t know if President Sam Nujoma taught us this lesson.It is then extremely worrying, perhaps irritating, when Ben Amathila in his farewell address to Parliament accentuated our one-way idealisation (and flattering) of the founding president by stating amongst others that “only Sam Nujoma can restore Swapo”.What this insinuation tells us is that Swapo is in possession of a hammer only and as the saying goes “when your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like nails”.Such plain thinking is symptomatic of our politics.And I can vouch that if you analyse this further, you may pick up that the inappropriateness of this kind of reasoning lies at the heart of what can go wrong with leadership in this country.As a people we are relatively content to remain in a grey zone between paternalistic leadership (benign as it were) and democratic thinking.In doing so, we fall into what Douglas North refers to as cognitive traps in which societies don’t realise that they have fallen behind, or they misdiagnose the source of their lack of progress.With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, quality leadership is neither the product of one great individual in the person of Sam Nujoma, nor the result of odd historical accidents as many want to hope.But as Cornel West would narrate: “it comes from deeply bred traditions and communities that shape and mould talented and gifted persons”.Incidentally, now that I come to think about it, Namibia is not short of such gifted persons.We should realise that the former president must pass into history, either because the ancestors have called him or because it is part of dynamic democratic practice.And that would mean, like the best of us, not casting aside the concrete takeaways from the Janus face of this great African revolutionary, Sam Nujoma.* Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in Political Science at the University of Paris Panthéon Sorbonne, France.Essentially, Ulenga was “morally wrong” for even if he disagreed with Sam Nujoma, he had an obligation to remain in Swapo.Drawing from the high canon of political science, I naturally felt the obligation to unambiguously oppose that view (and I did) but after a while I realised that it would be an uphill battle to explain to this emotional comrade not to draw unwise analogies between political parties in democracies and traditional father-son or paternalistic relationships.I am quite aware that it will take a far wiser head than mine to contest the view that there are many of us who share such paternal sentiments about the founding President.For that reason, I will venture that there are two pertinent ways in which we can look at the leadership of Sam Nujoma (Petrina Haingura might agree with me on both).One of them is to say that miracles do happen and hope for the repetition of miracles across the board when it comes to the leadership and direction of this country.The second is to say that Sam Nujoma is a unique leader and we have to thank the Lord for our extraordinary luck in having him as our founding President (and some in the ruling party hope that he remains for as long as he can).But these won’t take us far in our pursuit at learning home truths from the founding President.Thus, I will raise two prescient issues that I believe will serve as tangible lessons the moment we look at the leadership of Sam Nujoma.The first admission is that visionary leadership often involves putting aside self-doubt, bucking conventional wisdom, and listening only to an inner voice that tells you the right thing to do.And these qualities were in abundance when we look at the sturdy resolve Sam Nujoma displayed against great odds during the liberation struggle.Equally so, the former President’s record of achievement as President of the country is one we are proud of.So, if one looks at the leadership of Sam Nujoma objectively, one has to concede that it will take a very unsound head to contest the place of Sam Nujoma in the pantheon of eminent African leaders.Then again, the problem is also that bad leadership can also flow from the very same characteristics: steely determination runs the risk of becoming stubbornness; the willingness to flout conventional wisdom can amount to a lack of common sense; the inner voice that ought to tell you what is the right thing to do can become delusional.This is where most of us ought to realise the fact that Sam Nujoma was proven right under a surprising set of circumstances does not necessarily mean that he will be right all the time.It probably does mean, however, that one will be psychologically handicapped in recognising that one is wrong in future cases.In such circumstances, a leader becomes excessively distrustful of anyone who does not share their view and team loyalty trumps open-minded discussion.Machiavelli in his greatest treatise on power ‘The Prince’ argues persuasively that the only way leaders can safeguard themselves against flatterers who swarm in the courts is by letting people understand that they are not offended by the truth.Sadly, I don’t know if President Sam Nujoma taught us this lesson.It is then extremely worrying, perhaps irritating, when Ben Amathila in his farewell address to Parliament accentuated our one-way idealisation (and flattering) of the founding president by stating amongst others that “only Sam Nujoma can restore Swapo”.What this insinuation tells us is that Swapo is in possession of a hammer only and as the saying goes “when your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like nails”.Such plain thinking is symptomatic of our politics.And I can vouch that if you analyse this further, you may pick up that the inappropriateness of this kind of reasoning lies at the heart of what can go wrong with leadership in this country.As a people we are relatively content to remain in a grey zone between paternalistic leadership (benign as it were) and democratic thinking.In doing so, we fall into what Douglas North refers to as cognitive traps in which societies don’t realise that they have fallen behind, or they misdiagnose the source of their lack of progress.With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, quality leadership is neither the product of one great individual in the person of Sam Nujoma, nor the result of odd historical accidents as many want to hope.But as Cornel West would narrate: “it comes from deeply bred traditions and communities that shape and mould talented and gifted persons”.Incidentally, now that I come to think about it, Namibia is not short of such gifted persons.We should realise that the former president must pass into history, either because the ancestors have called him or because it is part of dynamic democratic practice.And that would mean, like the best of us, not casting aside the concrete takeaways from the Janus face of this great African revolutionary, Sam Nujoma.* Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in Political Science at the University of Paris Panthéon Sorbonne, France.