Our favourite Twitter moments with late president Geingob

President Geingob, affectionately known as the people’s president, brought immense joy and humour wherever he appeared, whether on screen or at public events.

In this special feature, we collaborated with food blogger and entrepreneur Sharon Neumbo.

Here is a glimpse at how Sharon viewed him, his personality, his leadership, and his love for the land, all through his tweets.

A legacy on Twitter

At the very beginning of his presidency, I remember that I criticised (like I often do) how much I thought that the late president Hage Geingob was such a reactive president, one press conference after another. I quickly came to understand that those reactions were not carefully designed or meticulously followed through public relation stunts; he was just that: reactive. A very present and intuitive leader who was going to tell us how he feels! All the time! But not before he told his wife how much of a fan he was.

Of course, our former first lady couldn’t hide how smitten she was either. In fact, she was the real-life character from my all-time favourite movie, Pretty Woman. She was just a girl, standing in front of a boy, except the boy was an actual real-life president who gave her loving side eyes because of her eager acceptance of a champagne bottle at a funeral. The things fairytales are made of.

All of us youngsters really thought that we had one up on him and figured that he had a millennial tweeting on his behalf. Moreover, this thought was justified because I, for one, do not have tweet-savvy parents! Nevermind a (then) seventy-three-year-old tweet-savvy president. Believe me when I say that we did everything we could to “catch him out” on our conspiracy theory because only one thing could be true: his cool wife was catfishing us. Until...

But still... Could it really be him?

Was the busiest man in the land making time daily to interact with us on social media? Every time we doubted Hageezy/Hagelolo (all nicknames befitting a cool dad), he proved that he was ahead of us because, after all, dads know everything, right? So on one random Monday in August 2021, he decided to send us, as the youth call them, receipts. A picture of his actual hand!

Having an accessible president was not the norm, and although we eventually accepted, from the humorous tone in his tweets, that it could actually be him, we still tried our luck. Presidential Bae (we gathered that this was his pet name at home) never let us catch him sleeping on the Twitter timeline until we finally accepted that we were the generation that tweets amongst our very own president.

Realising that we could DM a whole president, like any child, we were determined to manipulate him into being a soft parent. I cannot remember a week going by on Twitter without someone asking him for a public holiday, especially if he seemed to be in a particularly good mood. However, as in any home, if there is a soft parent, then you should expect the other one to be the disciplinarian. Our former FLON was just that – the defender, for the love of her life, against the onslaught of public holiday emotional blackmail requests from his mischievous online children.

Queue the pandemic

I have never felt like a naughtier child as when I watched those Thursday afternoon Covid briefings. He looked us straight in the eyes and banned us from going to the gym, and we just knew that the head of the house had spoken, so it was time to tow the line and act accordingly.

Those were difficult times for each of us, but he did what he could to keep us healthy and, most importantly, hopeful. At times, he had no choice but to make us laugh just to maintain some normality in those unprecedented times. Nothing was off the table with him, and when we expected him to be annoyed by how much of a joke we made in those updates, he just laughed, all the while keeping us prohibited.

He will forever be the president who taught us what it meant to be the people’s president. Even if you disagreed with him, he would accord you the opportunity to address him on that point, no matter how awkward it was.

I once went to an old age home, and there was a grandmother who had a huge portrait of him in her tiny room and she spoke so fondly of him. The youth will surely miss their fave, but it is our elderly who will feel the void of his departure the most. After all, he literally increased their “allowance” (what felt like) every other day. He was a leader who never forgot that grouping in our population, the most neglected segment, our elderly.

Ultimately, though, just like the elderly, the sobering truth is that we know that we have lost a leader who was always genuinely ready to hear you out and, if you were lucky, to give you your retweet shout-out on national television.

Never would I have imagined that we would one day walk alone as premature orphans without him. More heartbreaking is that this is not the public holiday we wanted, not like this.

Everyone has a vice, and some of us have more than one. If you know me, then you know that food and fashion rank highly on my list, so any well-dressed individual rarely goes unnoticed by me. This was one of my favourite attributes about our fallen statesman: he had swag.

I remember his maiden State of the Nation address back in 2015.

I watched as he and his wife walked in dressed for the occasion. The former FLON wore the most beautiful pumps and he wore a bespoke suit. It was a sight to behold; everything was meticulously selected and oozed class and perfection. I was so excited, and for the rest of his presidency, I eagerly watched his speeches just in case I picked a style inspiration from this fashion icon.

In times of grief, we know to speak no ill of the departed, but was he perfect? By no means. Did I agree with all his policies? Not at all. Did I publicly criticise him? Yes. But I did all of those things because I live in a country that protects my right to my views, and my late president defended democracy with his very being. This was a president who understood human rights and actively advocated for them while urging us to prioritise tolerance for each other despite our differences.

Deep grief

So I mourn.

I mourn a leader who has shown us that one can rise from a seemingly hopeless situation. I mourn a president who believed in and practiced an inclusive leadership style. I mourn a patriarch. I mourn a president who was always the first: first to challenge ethnic divides, first to wear his heart on his sleeve, first to love loudly, first to tweet and now the first to break an entire nation’s heart.

As we bid adieu to our towering statesman, we all know that we will never be the same again. The hole in our hearts is deeper than any of us could have imagined, and the scar will outlive the majority of us.

In spite of this, in his honour, we should endeavour to continue to live like he has taught us, as though he is watching. We should continue to uphold his vision for the Namibian House. Continue to ensure that none of us ever walks alone. Continue to prohibit poverty. Continue to laugh. Continue to dance. And may his life always remind us to live a life that makes others feel seen and heard.

President, our president, you honoured us by sacrificing your life to serve, and we are eternally grateful. But, oh, president, our president, today you have broken us.

Rest in power, your excellency Dr. Hage Gotfried Hageezy Hagelolo Omes Presidential Bae Geingob.

Forever in our hearts.

- Monochrome Magazine

*Editor's Note: This article has been edited for brevity in accordance with space constraints in the print edition. For the full version, please visit http://monochromemagazine.net