*Special feature with Sharon Neumbo
With heavy hearts, we stand alongside the nation in grieving the loss of our esteemed President, His Excellency Dr. Hage G. Geingob, who departed from us earlier this month. President Geingob, affectionately known as the people’s president, brought immense joy and humor wherever he appeared, whether on screen or at public events. His infectious laughter, warm gestures, and unwavering dedication to addressing social injustices have left an indelible mark on our hearts and memories. We will forever cherish his jokes, his compassionate contributions to societal causes, and the profound impact he made during his tenure. President Geingob’s legacy of leadership, compassion, and humor will be fondly remembered and celebrated for generations to come.
In this special feature we collaborated with Food Blogger and Entrepreneur, Sharon Neumbo, previously known as @foodfluencer_nam on Instagram to share some of our favourite Twitter moments of the President.
Here is a glimpse at how Sharon viewed him, his personality, his leadership and his love for the land all through his tweets.
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 her 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 for 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, what the youth call, 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 who tweets amongst our very own president.
Realizing that we could DM a whole president, like any child, we were determined to manipulate him into being the soft parent. I cannot remember a week going past 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.
As soft as he was, when it mattered he showed us tough love. The president always laughed and that is how we will remember him, a smiling man.
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 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 on
ce went to an old age home and there was a granny 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…lol! He was a leader who never forgot that grouping in our population, the most neglected segment, our elderly.
As for us? We will always remember the unexpected Sunday afternoon car wash visit or the tweets that routinely caught us off guard. 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 shoutout on national television.
How does a child act when they intend to ask a parent for the impossible? They study him, wait for a moment that he is jovial and then sneak in the request that would otherwise never pass. Uncle daddy was not spared from this either. Our late president’s weakness was sports, soccer in particular so we resorted to using soccer to throw in our backdoor pleas for public holidays. My personal favourite witty moments with him were when he would respond by declaring an already non working day as a public holiday.
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 maden State of the Nation Address back in 2015 and I watched as he and his wife walked in dressed for the occasion. Former FLON wore the most beautiful pumps and he wore a bespoke suit. It was a sight to rever, 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 inspo idea 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 criticize 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 prioritize tolerance of each other in our differences..
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 walk 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 in 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.
