Nujoma statues criticised

Former President Sam Nujoma has been accused of being selfish for allowing statues of himself to be erected throughout the country and streets to be renamed after him. Members of the DTA Youth League made the accusation yesterday when they blamed Nujoma as well as the government for spending millions on these statues instead of focusing on more important issues. The secretary-general of the DTA Youth League, Bensen Katjirijoro, made the statement in front of the Alte Feste Museum where the Reiterdenkmal used to stand. According to him Namibia is filled with tributes to Nujoma. “You cannot turn your head without seeing Nujoma. It should not be that way.” Referring to the statue of the former president that has been erected in front of the Independence Memorial Museum, he said that “it is only Nujoma everywhere you look”. He went on to say that Nujoma should not be selfish because he does not own the country. “Everything is Nujoma. You cannot own the country.” Katjirijoro said Namibia should not follow in other African leaders’ footsteps and added that Nujoma should distance himself from the statues and street names honouring him. “We blame him because he accepted this. The government is totally selfish and wrong.” Reacting to the statements, Nujoma’s spokesperson John Natau told Namibian Sun that these statues were erected to honour the founding president. “Are they also bitter and angry [about him] liberating the country? They must not waste my time. What do you expect coming from them? They have been collaborating with the enemy from the start. If it was up to them we would still be in apartheid.” Katjirijoro also accused the government of wasting money and said that the Reiterdenkmal should never have been removed in the first place. Wasting resources He said the youth are very concerned about how the government is wasting resources. According to him the government has spent millions, only to replace a statue from the colonial period with another one. “These things are all the same. What was the purpose of removing the horse? It has only been double resources spent.” He stressed that the government should stop wasting resources and rather start spending money on important issues. “This is a waste of money. They have a lot of power and think that they can do what they want.” Katjirijoro said the youth league has not forgotten the colonial era, but it was wrong to demolish the equestrian statue to forget a part of Namibia’s history. He stressed that there has been reconciliation and people need to accept it. “What happened has happened and people should move on. We have to work on reconciliation.” They further said that the Reiterdenkmal statue should never have been removed from where it was. “We wanted it to be here. Are they going to send all the buildings of Germany back?”