www.africansuntimes.com
LUNCH WITH SAM NUJOMA:
A Day in the Life of a Capitalist Nigger
By Chika Onyeani
A Day in the Life of a Capitalist Nigger
By Chika Onyeani
Former Namibian President and Father of the Nation, Dr. Sam Nujoma, with Dr. Chika Onyeani (Photos by John Walenga, Prime Focus)
"I said to His Excellency, "That's not going to work. Whites are always intransigent. They don't understand when they have exceeded the boundaries of intolerance. As much as I have criticized President Mugabe for his dictatorship and autocratic leadership, on the land reform issue, as I had written in 2006, 99.9% of Africans are behind him." I had concluded that article, "Zimbabwe's Mugabe and White Farmers," with these warning, "Those of us who have pointed accusing fingers at the politics of President Mugabe, should do our homework. Robbers and murderers should not be allowed to keep the fruits of their ill-gotten gains. Zimbabwe belongs to Africans, even the whites who consider themselves Africans, but the land does not belong to murderers who savagely exterminated Black Africans and seized the land without compensation. That would be a great misapplication of justice." In fact, evidence is now being amassed by British institutions like UK's Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University that "land reform in Zimbabwe not a failure, that the Zimbabwean economy is booming in the rural areas."
"After we greeted His Excellency, and since he knew that I was Nigerian, he immediately launched into a history of his country's earliest struggle, and what role Nigeria had played in helping SWAPO achieve its pre-eminence in the country. Under the right-wing conservative administration of President Ronald Reagan, America had not only furnished and assisted the white apartheid regime in South Africa with all kinds of military weapons, but had also used the CIA to destabilize the Organization of Africa Unity (OAU) by funneling a lot of money to President Mobutu Sese Seko. When finally the OAU decided to take action on South West Africa and decide on which organization in South West Africa should be recognized, they were deadlocked. "It was Nigeria," Dr. Nujoma thundered, "that saved the African continent, and without Nigeria, I doubt that Africa would be where we are today. Nigeria has suffered heavy material losses in human capital as well as financial capital to see Africa independent, but a lot of people are forgetting that. Africa owes a lot to Nigeria," he said. He proceeded to narrate what had happened after the OAU had deadlocked; it was the late Gen. Murtala Mohammed who was then Nigeria's Head of State, who came to the rescue of SWAPO, providing them with the weapons including tanks, rocket launchers, etc. that saved the day for SWAPO and emboldened it to launch incessant raids on the apartheid white South Africa army and inflict heavy casualties on them. These were revelations that most Africans are not aware of in the lexicon of the war of African independence from the white colonial masters. Tears swelled in my eyes and it made me proud to be a Nigerian and from Nigeria, a country that had let its citizens suffer all kinds of hardships in service for Motherland Africa, including the loss of thousands of soldiers and financial losses. It was great to hear of Nigeria's greatness from bonafide witnesses like the great freedom fighter Sam Nujoma." (Read More)
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