Featured – Windhoek Observer

13 Feb

YOUNG OBSERVER | #UNMUTED

Featured, Opinions

February has a way of drawing attention toward love, placing it gently at the centre of conversation through symbols that feel both familiar and comforting. Yet beneath the surface of celebration lies a quieter reality shaping the lives of many young people; a season of becoming marked less by certainty than by patience, less by arrival than by unfolding. In such a season, love reveals itself in forms wider than romance alone, appearing in friendship that sustains, in ambition that persists through delay, and in the quiet courage required to keep building a future that cannot yet be clearly seen.…

10 Feb

Beyond candles and speeches: To truly honour our founders

Featured, Opinions

PAUL T. SHIPALE (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar) February has emerged as a month of reckoning for Namibia, a time heavy with memory, loss, and moral reflection. Within its short span, the nation finds itself repeatedly called to pause, to mourn, and to ask difficult questions about legacy, fidelity, and the meaning of service. One year after the passing of His Excellency Dr Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma, the Founding Father of the Namibian Nation, Namibia gathered once again at Heroes’ Acre. Candles were lit. Speeches were delivered. Tributes were read. The nation paused, as it should, to remember the…

10 Feb

Why Namibia’s Constitution Day must matter more than ever

Editorial, Featured

Every year on 9 February, Namibia marks Constitution Day. It is a date that should command national attention, deep reflection and collective pride. Yet too often it passes quietly, almost unnoticed, despite the immense significance it holds in the life of our Republic. On 9 February 1990, just weeks before Independence, the Namibian Constitution was adopted, laying the legal and moral foundation upon which our democracy was built. This year, Constitution Day falls in a month heavy with national grief and remembrance. On 8 February, the nation mourned the passing of its Founding Father and first President, Dr Sam Shafiishuna…

09 Feb

Justine Shiweda did not have to die; not like this

Editorial, Featured

Namibia is mourning, but mourning alone is not enough. The death of Justine Shiweda, a public prosecutor who died from injuries sustained in a brutal, targeted attack, should leave this nation shaken to its moral core. She did not die of illness. She did not die by accident. She died in the line of duty because she dared to do her job. And that should outrage every single one of us. Justine Shiweda did not deserve to die. Not like this. Not violently. Not as a warning. Not as collateral damage in a society that too often shrugs when women…

09 Feb

TURNING POINT | Namibia’s youth debate is asking the wrong question

Featured, Opinions

If Namibia’s challenges could be solved by replacing older leaders with younger ones, the country would already be on a dramatically different trajectory. Youth unemployment would be falling, institutions would be stronger, and public trust would be rising. Instead, the opposite is true. Yet our public discourse increasingly insists that the central problem is generational: that young people are deliberately held back by an older generation unwilling to let go. It is a convenient narrative, simple, emotive, and politically useful. It is also largely misleading. Namibia is a young country by any measure. Roughly 70% of the population is under…

06 Feb

YOUNG OBSERVER | #UNMUTED

Featured, Opinions

In the quiet symmetry of history, February has once again become a month of memory for Namibia. Within days of one another, the nation marked the passing of two towering figures whose lives shaped the moral, political and institutional imagination of our republic: founding president Sam Nujoma and president Hage Geingob. Their departures do not merely signal the end of personal journeys; they summon the nation into reflection about legacy, responsibility, and the unfinished work of freedom. These were not ordinary leaders. They belonged to a generation that carried conviction through exile, negotiation, reconciliation, institution-building, and the long discipline of…

06 Feb

Does anyone actually live here? Discovering Namibia from a lens of prospect.

Featured, National News

Written by “The Mengelas” “Does anybody actually live here?” asked our most recent friends from Germany who were absolutely stunned by the very majestic and memorizing landscapes our Country gets to subtly boast about. A desert stretched out by 2000km, along a coastline which is home to plus 500 fish species and more than 300 other marine species is definitely not child’s play. Sometimes it appears to be evident that as Namibians, we probably do not even understand the beauty that surrounds us. Is it perhaps because the best tourist destinations come with an apparent financial trade-off which the every-…

05 Feb

Petroleum Amendment Bill: dead on arrival?

Editorial, Featured, Opinions

The Petroleum Amendment Bill is back before the National Assembly, retabled on Wednesday by the Minister of Industries, Mines and Energy, Modestus Amutse. On paper, it is presented as a technical adjustment to Namibia’s petroleum governance framework. In substance, however, it represents a profound shift of power, one that would allow the President of the Republic to grant and revoke oil and gas rights. From the very onset, it is clear that this bill will be vehemently opposed. Not because Namibians are anti-development, nor because they are hostile to investment in oil and gas, but because the bill raises serious…

05 Feb

Beyond ritual: Reconnecting Namibia’s state with its people

Featured, Opinions

A public reflection on Namibia’s governance week PAUL T. SHIPALE (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar) Every system of governance that is born without clarity about the role of each actor creates a silent war within the state. That war makes no noise, but it paralyses the country. As Namibia formally opens the three arms of the state, namely the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, for the 2026 working year, the moment calls for more than constitutional observance. It calls for reflection. Not only by leaders, but by citizens as well. A fundamental question must be asked: how…

04 Feb

Parliament at a crossroads: choose law-making over theatre

Editorial, Featured

The official opening of the third session of the eighth Parliament by President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah signals more than the start of a new legislative calendar. It represents a moment of reckoning for Namibia’s Legislature, a chance to reset, to refocus, and to recommit itself to the serious business of governance. The President’s address was firm but measured, and its underlying message was unmistakable: Namibians are watching Parliament closely, and they expect results, not spectacle. Her call for members of Parliament to strengthen their role in advancing inclusive development and participatory democracy was timely. Across the country, citizens are grappling with…