PAUL T. SHIPALE (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar)
ABSTRACT
This analysis examines President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s six months in office through the lens of Paulo Freire’s conscientisation and Roberto Mangabeira Unger’s institutional reinvention and transformative leadership. Moving beyond ceremonial assessments, this examination intends to look at the mantra of “business unusual” of President Nandi-Ndaitwah as opposed to the substantive transformation of Namibian governance structures if juxtaposed to Freire and Unger’s conceptual frameworks.
Introduction
In any political cycle, the sixth month of governance is a symbolic milestone. It is the moment for a preliminary balance: assessing what has been delivered, which promises remain on paper, and which obstacles have become visible. In Namibia, the presidency of Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, inaugurated in March 2025 as the country’s first female head of state, was framed as the promise of a “radical shift.” Six months later, however, the contrast between rhetoric and practice is clear: instead of a structural rupture, entrenched patronage networks remain dominant, and we are back to square one from the mantra of “Business Unusual” to Business as Usual. We already stated here in one of our articles that Roberto Mangabeira Unger is one of the most original political philosophers of our time, advocating for a radically democratic, participatory, and imaginative approach to social and institutional transformation. Unger’s vision resonates powerfully with the imperatives of African emancipation and nation-building in the 21st century.
Among the core themes in Unger’s work are:1. Imaginative Institutionalism: where he rejects the idea that current political and economic institutions are the natural or final forms of social organisation. He insists that all institutions are contingent and can be reinvented to better serve human freedom and social inclusion; 2. Plasticity of Social Life: where Unger believes society is not fixed and that human beings have the capacity to reshape the structures they live under. 3. False Necessity: In which Unger’s most famous philosophical attack is against what he calls “false necessity” – the belief that there is no alternative to existing systems. He argues instead for “structure-denying” thought that frees us from the illusion of inevitability; 4. Development as Emancipation: where, for Unger, development is not just economic growth, but the enhancement of human powers, creativity, and collective agency. This last idea, among many others Unger’s ideas, aligns closely with the African developmental challenge – how to pursue modernisation without mimicking the West.
The promise of renewal
In her inaugural address, the president laid out a clear script:
• creation of 500,000 jobs over five years, supported by N$85 billion in investment;
• universal higher education and healthcare;
• substantive land reform;
• corruption elevated to the status of “high treason against the nation”;
• a leaner, gender-balanced government, reducing ministries from 21 to 14.
This was the narrative of a moral and generational rupture, designed to renew the legitimacy of the state in a society marked by inequality and mistrust.
Early signals: staging change
During the first 100 days, government action sought to give tangible form to this rhetoric:
• reducing the cabinet and appointing a female majority;
• reactivating strategic agricultural schemes;
• allocating N$257 million to the Youth Fund;
• repositioning Windhoek as an active player in the AfCFTA.
This initial phase conveyed the image of a government with reformist urgency.
Six months on: back to square one
The half-year balance, however, reveals partial outcomes and contradictions, especially after the latest appointments of the country’s envoys. Indeed, President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s latest round of ambassadorial appointments has ignited a lively national debate. As it was reported in this daily newspaper, all of the new envoys are seasoned diplomats, many of them retired, and their average age is noticeably high. For some Namibians, their appointment looks like a closed circle of trusted allies, an old guard rewarding loyalty and preserving networks built during the President’s long tenure as Minister of International Relations.
While for some, this was a pragmatic decision to deploy experienced professionals at a critical time for the country’s foreign policy, and she justified that “they were meant to navigate the current uncertain geopolitics to maintain the country’s bilateral and multilateral relations”, the question is, was the latest round of appointments really a step in the right direction following the recurrent motif and mantra of “business unusual” or just another performative diplomatic catwalk and a rehearsed spectacle that is not transformative?
We concur with those who asked the question to find out why the President didn’t appoint people such as Ebba Kalondo, even at the AU’s Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia? Ester Muinjange to the Federal Republic of Germany in order to oversee the genocide negotiations, Obeth Kandjoze to Accra, Ghana, Dr Alfredo Hengari to France or Belgium and even Professor Diescho to one of the Asiatic countries such as India, Japan, Malaysia or Singapore, if we have a mission there, instead of appointing people who have no clue whatsoever what the Monroe Doctrine is all about or even about the Bolivarian Republic and how to handle the escalating tension in Latin America and the Caribbean? In this regard, we applaud the Colombian President Gustav Petro’s speech at the 80th UNGA in New York warning against a global order of racism and wealth protecting a few elite privileges by fuelling fear through a narrative of wars and migrant persecution and distorting and erasing truth on climate change, thereby leading the entirety of humanity to an abyss of its own extinction.
Speaking of Latin America, we highly appreciate and applaud Hon. Tobie Aupindi for the National Assembly to discuss that the embargo against Cuba be lifted and that the USA remove Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism! We are glad that it is honourable Aupindi who submitted such a motion, unlike those who all of a sudden are too important even to listen to the people and don’t want to tell us about the status of the Office of the Founding Father if it will be declared a National Heritage Site, as it was done in Egypt with the Office of Gamal Abdel Nasser.
What do some people know about the volatile situation between Venezuela and the USA or the situation in the Eastern DRC, if one may so ask? They are not even polyglots who can speak French, Spanish or Portuguese to be able to express themselves freely in those languages or let alone allow the Cubans to be proud to see their own products or former students now serving as envoys in their country. Why didn’t the President appoint some former ministers as envoys, such as Peya Mushelenga and Itah Kandjii-Murangi?
It is our considered view that the merger of the Ministries of International Relations and Trade could have generated institutional innovation but instead devolved into recycling of elites and politically loyal appointments. Embassies became, in effect, compensation mechanisms, undermining the credibility of a merit-based diplomacy. Diplomacy must become a design and must be transformative. Nostalgia and appointments based on loyalty are not futuristic but anchored in the past.
We fully agree with those who are saying a diplomatic corps dominated by those who have already served their time sends a troubling message: that leadership abroad is a preserve of the past generation. Young professionals, fluent in the digital tools of modern diplomacy and attuned to the aspirations of a changing society, want, and deserve, a chance to represent their country. Moreover, the next wave of global engagement will increasingly be about technology, climate action, and new markets in Asia and Africa. Fresh voices and perspectives can open doors and build networks in ways that a purely veteran cadre may not. Diversity of age and outlook is not tokenism; it is strategic renewal.
To live up to its mandate, the Ministry of International Relations and Trade should be truly committed to economic upliftment and trade expansion, and the evaluation of our returning diplomats must extend beyond bilateral agreements. Their performance must be rigorously assessed on their demonstrable success in facilitating transformative investment, boldly opening new markets for Namibian products, and assiduously creating tangible opportunities for Namibian businesses.
Economic diplomacy today embodies a change from the previously conventional diplomacy, which prioritises political and security concerns, to a more comprehensive strategy that acknowledges the importance of economic interests in the creation and implementation of foreign policy. This very dynamic is what AfCFTA stands to correct through its operational initiatives and serves as a reflection of the shifting dynamics of power in international relations, where trade impact on the global economy assumes as much impact on world events as is equivalent to military force.
Indeed, in the 21st century, African diplomacy must transcend ceremonial pleasantries and become a potent engine for economic liberation and shared prosperity. Our ambassadors must be the vanguard of our economic interests, fiercely advocating for the prosperity of our peoples in every global capital. For Namibia, this is an immediate, strategic, and moral imperative, positioning our nation as a proactive leader in a mutually beneficial economic agenda that resonates with the spirit of Pan-Africanism. The ultimate objective is to meticulously craft a model of diplomacy that delivers concrete, measurable prosperity, moving decisively beyond symbolic gestures to impactful, citizen-centric development. This endeavour will serve as the ultimate litmus test for the new administration’s vision and mantra of “business unusual”.
Thus, Namibia stands at a crossroads. The current appointments, dominated by veterans, may well provide the immediate stability and skill the country needs. But they also sharpen the nation’s awareness that long-term credibility abroad requires a diplomatic corps that mirrors the energy and demographics of its people. I therefore concur with the view that says President Nandi-Ndaitwah’s next round of selections will carry weight far beyond the individuals named. It will signal whether Namibia’s foreign policy intends to be both rooted in experience and open to the future.
Conclusion
The first six months of President Nandi-Ndaitwah’s mandate reveal a clear pattern: adaptation to existing power networks, rather than confronting them. The risk is that her project of a “radical shift” becomes a political mirage, visible on the horizon, yet unreachable in practice.
Visionary leadership, in Unger’s sense, is not about charisma or efficiency but about disruption – the willingness to break from inherited patterns and experiment with alternative models. Namibia’s future depends on reclaiming the power of possibility, on seeing the world not as it is, but as it could be. To fulfil its promise, Namibia must transcend colonial legacies, resist neoliberal fatalism, and embrace structural creativity. Transformation will not emerge from elite circles alone. It must be cultivated from the ground up to reimagine institutions. Unger’s vision – democratic renewal, economic solidarity, and imaginative governance – offers a radical alternative. Freire’s praxis is the very antithesis of intellectual abstraction; it is the indissoluble unity of reflection and action, a dialectical dance between theory and practice.
In another report entitled WHOSE TONGUE SPEAKS FOR THE PEOPLE? In AFRICA’S LANGUAGE DILEMMA by Wonder Guchu, which appeared in the Sun Newspaper on Monday, 22 September 2025, the reporter said that the late Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o argued in ‘Decolonising the Mind’ that language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we perceive ourselves and our place in the world. Yet in many African parliaments, it is the colonial languages – English, French, and Portuguese – that dominate, while the tongues of the people are sidelined, treated as if unfit for the highest chambers of lawmaking.
One could guess that this comes in the wake of the AR leader Job Amupanda, who made history, in our humble opinion, for being the first MP who asked an oral question or submitted a motion in his mother tongue and made prior arrangements for it to be translated into the official language, which is the Queen’s, or better still, King Charles’s, of ‘Great Britain’ language.
In the debate that ensued, the reporter said that with more than 2 000 indigenous languages, the African continent is the most linguistically diverse in the world; yet, many states continue to function officially in English, French or Portuguese, which leaves ordinary citizens alienated from parliamentary debates, court rulings and education systems that operate in foreign tongues. Herein comes Job Amupanda when the issue of language in parliament recently came to the fore, and he argued that if parliament is to truly reflect the people, then the indigenous languages should be given a place on the floor.
Conversely, despite the fact that in some African countries, such as South Africa, MPs are free to speak in any of the 11 official languages or in Shona or Ndebele in Zimbabwe, Swahili in Tanzania, Amharic in Ethiopia, etc.,interpretation systems often falter. Former Prime Minister Nahas Angula has long acknowledged this paradox, saying if the country can afford to have interpreters, parliamentarians can express themselves in their mother tongues.
However, Angula pointed out that if it is left to those parties which can afford interpreters, the idea shall be discriminatory. “Home Language as the medium of instruction from Grade 1 to 3, Home Language as a subject from Grade 4 to 12. This works in rural areas but is a challenge in urban schools,” Angula said.
Be that as it may, we are of the opinion that Job Amupanda has opened the Pandora’s box of the Tower of Babel, but most importantly, he has demonstrated his understanding, from a Panafricanist perspective, of the difference between decoloniality and coloniality.
Indeed, decoloniality examines how the impacts of colonialism continue to shape modern societies, identities, and knowledge systems beyond formal independence. It challenges dominant, Western-centric ways of thinking and emphasises the resurgence of non-Western and marginalised voices, histories, and knowledge systems. The theory focuses on dismantling the enduring structures of colonial power, a concept known as “coloniality”.
According to Walter Mignolo, decolonial theory focuses on coloniality, a concept distinct from colonialism, which refers to the enduring power structures and epistemic injustices embedded in the modern/colonial world system. Decoloniality involves “epistemic delinking” from dominant Eurocentric knowledge and ontology and instead promoting “pluriversality” by re-engaging with suppressed local knowledge systems and pluriversal ways of living and being. This “ongoing undoing of colonisation” aims to dismantle colonial power, moving beyond mere political or economic independence to fundamentally reshape knowledge production and consciousness.
Decoloniality, as we are posing it here, does not imply the absence of coloniality but rather the ongoing serpentine movement toward possibilities of other modes of being, thinking, knowing, sensing, and living. In this sense, decoloniality is not a condition to be achieved in a linear sense, since coloniality as we know it will probably never disappear.
It is clear that the MP who posed his question in Parliament in his vernacular, or rather mother tongue, has made history and has contributed to dismantling the coloniality that is in our country. It is not the foreign language that makes a person wise. Wisdom does not depend on a foreign language; therefore, our councillors and governors who cannot express themselves in English will now be able to express themselves in their mother tongues.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of our employers and this newspaper but solely our personal views as citizens and Pan-Africanists.
