By Adama Gaye

From nowhere, yesterday, a gracile young lady, barely 18 years old, dark complexion, slim, still growing, struck the world’s attention by drawing it to a country rarely mentioned to a point, in his colourful language, former US President, Donald Trump, once called it…NAMBIA.

Humility and discretion, rigor and a sense of purpose, the hallmarks of what the South West African nation stands for, were clearly behind Christine Mpoma when she stood on the 200 meters women’s finale and shocked the world after the race ended. By winning a silver medal for her country she brought pride to its geography and elated its people. But more importantly she gave respect, that respect it yearned, to an African continent fighting to defeat its many ills so as to deserve another chance in a world where it has been demeaned for so long.

Sports matter in world affairs. Witness the ongoing geopolitical competition between China and the Usa on the number of medals at the Olympics. More than any other yardsticks, it is on the track-fields that the competition may be determined.

The signal that Christine’s blistering victory sends is that, yes, Namibia is a country worthy to be considered for it might be in the penultimate independent African nation that Africa’s renewal may be taking off -silently.

I don’t know how but I happen to be associated with what his people call the land of the braves over 30 years ago.

First in Geneva when in 1988, as a young journalist, I found myself covering a peace-talks on Southern Africa, including Namibia, under the then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Chester Crocker, during the Reagan presidency.

Crocker was then championing his linkage strategy calling for the end of apartheid in South Africa, plus Namibia’s independence, in exchange of the withdrawal of Cuban and Russian troops stationed in neighbouring Angola.

That was the time when the cold war between the two ideological rival blocks, US’s and USSR’s, was receding.

During the peace talks and in the streets of the economic capital of Switzerland, I befriended many of the Namibian freedom-fighters. Later on in New York, dressed in short, I took walk, in the “village” with Theo Ben Gurirab, then the representative at the United Nations of the Swapo, the political movement that led Namibia to its independence.

We would talk endlessly about the new Africa we both were dreaming of.

Ben Gurirab became chairman of the UN General Assembly

He was not the only face who made me realize how promising was Namibia.

Of course in my younger years due to enlightened African solidarity strategy devised in my country, Senegal, by our first President, Leopold Sedar Senghor, I had come to be close friends with the members of the Swapo Dakar office, in particular of Eddy Amkongo. Also, even in my remote hometown of Kaolack, young Namibians studying there were part of us, totally integrated.

I got the chance, as a journalist, to interview the heroes of Namibia’s independence, including its founding father, Doctor Sam Nujoma.

In 1997, on a private plane, I travelled for the first time to Windoek as a member of a delegation led by Kofi Annan, then newly elected UN Secretary General. During that visit,Tuliameni Kalomoh, a seasoned Namibian diplomat was appointed as an Assistant Secretary General of Annan.

That was a justified move. Indeed, Namibia is the brain child of the UN’s defense of the self determination of the people around the world. It had designated Finland’s Marthi Ahtisaari, a would-be Nobel Laureate, to conduct the process to her independence.

I returned to Namibia as a guest of its Prime minister, Doctor Geingob, with whom I since maintained brotherly, friendly ties, to this day, despite him becoming President now.

Discovering this sleepy and windy nation has been one of my greatest experiences as it has shown me how a tiny nation but well-managed, decent, conscious, can make a difference.

I have come to know truly Namibia thanks to its current President, Doctor Hage Geingob. In addition to our companionship during the struggle towards his country’s independence, we have met in various places:

-i n Windhoek and in his farm-land where he took me, hosted me and walked me, in a relaxed mode, while he was Prime Minister;

– in Beijing during the first Africa-China Summit when we walked together to the conference in 2006 as he was Minister of Trade and Industry;

– in Washington where, as Executive Director of the Global Coalition for Africa, he invited me

– and had dinner with my family in a Georgetown restaurant.

What stuck me in his leadership has been his sense of history. He never forgot indeed how countries like Senegal stood by the side of Namibia in its darkest time when it was a country under trusteeship and later South Africa’s colonial yokes. As a former representative of his country in New York and the head of the Namibia UN Institute in Lusaka (Zambia), he knows the geographies of the people of Africa.

Needless to say that when Namibia wanted to celebrate Senegal on the occasion of its liberation struggle, in 2013, he invited me -and had lunch with me. He was a minister under President Pohamba who took over from Nujoma.

“I am the next President if I don’t make a mistake”, he told me.

I had travelled with Macky Sall who knows it all.

One year later, as the newly-elected President of Namibia, President Geingob invited me to his inauguration on March 21st 2015 along with prominent figures like the Kaundas, Rawlings, Ahtisaaris but also casual people who played a role in his life such as a Zambian driver who saved his life from a car-bomb attempt.

I got a treat after his inauguration: he hosted me for a lunch in an African restaurant in Katatura one of those Namibian populous suburbs from where the independence struggle brew in a sign of connectivity to his people and to an old friend.

Such is Geingob: a patriot, a pan-Africanist and an effective leader. A decent man. Principled. I will never forget the years when I would get a call from him in London inviting me for dinner when he was transiting after taking his courses at Leeds University where, despite being Prime minister, he pursued his Phd.

Now, as the third President of Namibia, his attention divided between the fight against the scourge of the COVID pandemic, the regional tensions raging from South Africa to Mozambique and of course his duties at nation-building.

No mean-feat thus far: yesterday Olympic medal may be the shinning side of an untold story, an underrated African success story, but the over-all picture is even more alluring.

Yesterday Namibia launched its green hydrogen strategy proving it is ahead of the curve. It is one if the fifth least corrupt countries in Africa. It got the best African civil service.

And internationally, while maintaining its old ties with China or Cuba, it doesn’t nurture any enmity.

Case in point: it has recently negotiated peacefully with Germany, once its colonial power, an over 1 billion euro compensation to pay for the first genocide in Africa against the Namibian Hereroes Tribe – long buried by world historians.

Africa is not all doom and gloom. Namibia stands as a model to emulate, as Africa at its best. Omake, let’s clap fingers as Namibians say. Well-deserved.

Let’s be frank: if Namibia has come a long way, it got to do with a qualitative and transformative leadership at its helms. Who dare say leadership doesn’t matter? Namibia proves otherwise.

– Aug. 3, 2021 @ 9:11 GMT |