In Namibia, the big news is a new president has been sworn in. His name is Hifikepunye Pohamba. The country is to be congratulated for a peaceful transition of power. By all accounts, the new president is a good man who wants the best for his country.
The only worry about Pohamba is some of his rhetoric about land distribution. So far, unlike Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Pohamba has talked only about peaceful redistribution of land: that is, the government buying land from willing sellers.
"Land distribution does not mean confiscation, but means selling land to the government at fair prices as provided in the constitution and the relevant laws," Pohamba was quoted as saying recently by The Namibian newspaper in Windhoek. "To date, not a single farm has been expropriated."
It is what Pohamba said next that is unsettling: "We have a fear in the SWAPO (the acronym for the political party he belongs to) leadership that if we do not do something [about land distribution] there could be revolution. The `have nots' could stand up and say: `Enough is enough.' We as SWAPO leaders could be overthrown, land could be confiscated. Namibia could become ungovernable...."
Chilling words indeed, no....? Especially when you look across the continent at what has happened in Zimbabwe.
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