Leaders need to be told the truth The firing last week of sport, youth and national service minister Jerry Ekandjo and home affairs and immigration minister Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana came as no surprise, considering that President Hage Geingob said late last year that 2018 would be 'the year of reckoning'.
In the case of Ekandjo and Iivula-Ithana, they were at the forefront of a Swapo faction that had contested against Geingob and his running mates for the party's top posts at an elective congress in November.
It is obviously the head of state's prerogative to hire and fire anyone he wishes in his cabinet, and as he continues to navigate the economic headwinds bashing the country, he should be given a chance to tailor his executive to achieve the outcomes we all need as a nation.
The social media debates in the aftermath of the cabinet dismissals last week were predictable and centred around either attacking or defending the president.
What was distinctively missing was a debate about what role dissent can and must play in Namibia's political discourse. If a minister or ministers, for example, use an intra-party campaigning platform to attack a sitting president and his policies, is it justifiable to use this as a reason for firing them?
And, at what point does this kind of dissent or disagreement with the current path being taking by a president and his cabinet, of which you are a part, become worthy of retributive practices?
There are no easy answers to these questions, but what can be said is that Africa is littered with the political graves of those leaders who refused to listen to entertain or listen to dissenting voices, and rather surrounded themselves with yes-men and yes-women, who told them exactly what they wanted to hear.
In the Namibian context, we need to cultivate and nurture dissent that is uttered in the interest of the nation and overcoming the challenges we face.
Leaders need to be challenged on issues and they also need to be able to separate the message from the messenger, as hard truths are often even harder to swallow.
In the case of Ekandjo and Iivula-Ithana, they were at the forefront of a Swapo faction that had contested against Geingob and his running mates for the party's top posts at an elective congress in November.
It is obviously the head of state's prerogative to hire and fire anyone he wishes in his cabinet, and as he continues to navigate the economic headwinds bashing the country, he should be given a chance to tailor his executive to achieve the outcomes we all need as a nation.
The social media debates in the aftermath of the cabinet dismissals last week were predictable and centred around either attacking or defending the president.
What was distinctively missing was a debate about what role dissent can and must play in Namibia's political discourse. If a minister or ministers, for example, use an intra-party campaigning platform to attack a sitting president and his policies, is it justifiable to use this as a reason for firing them?
And, at what point does this kind of dissent or disagreement with the current path being taking by a president and his cabinet, of which you are a part, become worthy of retributive practices?
There are no easy answers to these questions, but what can be said is that Africa is littered with the political graves of those leaders who refused to listen to entertain or listen to dissenting voices, and rather surrounded themselves with yes-men and yes-women, who told them exactly what they wanted to hear.
In the Namibian context, we need to cultivate and nurture dissent that is uttered in the interest of the nation and overcoming the challenges we face.
Leaders need to be challenged on issues and they also need to be able to separate the message from the messenger, as hard truths are often even harder to swallow.