Lie #9: The youth are ‘completely useless’
Documentary series on the lies of Job Amupanda
Prior to the 2020 election, Job Amupanda called on the “dear youth” — as he often referred to his target audience — to vote for his Affirmative Repositioning, promising to tackle the twin problems of youth landlessness and high rental costs.
Yet, within two months of taking the mayoral seat in Council, Amupanda began to vilify, condemn and slander the youth as “completely useless” and “worthless” drunkards, while ignoring the socioeconomic context that reduced many youth to grinding poverty. He called on parents and grandparents alike to throw their children onto the street if they do not help to pay the municipal bills.
What Job said before the election
While still under the youth wing of the Swapo Party, Job Amupanda told his friend and fellow youth-league member Toivo Ndjebela, then editor of New Era, about his efforts to ensure “access of land by the youth” and defend “the dignity of the youth”.
He said:
It is a campaign to drive home basic principles and issues surrounding… access of land by the youth, [as well as] uncontrolled or unregulated prices of rent and how the question of land dehumanises and erodes the dignity of the landless youth.
He had discovered that people were renting at high cost from ministers and MPs:
This situation cannot continue because as matters stand the only land the youth will own is their graves. It is shameful for me to call myself a youth leader, yet sit idle in boardrooms eating biscuits and drinking coffee while our youth are being made [rent] slaves in their own country.
He said his aim was “simple, to have the land issue solved, once and for all.”
As I said elsewhere I am sacrificing… to have the youth taken seriously and have the land issue addressed. Our leaders think that our youth can just accept anything. It has actually being postulated that we are a useless generation of cowards... that we are all about alcohol, sex and entertainment.
To lend substance to the promises of his friend, Ndjebela’s article claimed that this was “not a Job-centric revolution”. Indeed, as it turned out there was no revolution at all under his leadership of the City, just a continuation of the same corporate policies that had put so many households in dire straits.
Prior to the election Amupanda presented himself as a defender of the rights of the youth, as seen in numerous online posts, a small sample of which can be seen below.
Young folk elected Job
Inspired by his promises and statements of support, many landless and impoverished young people supported Amupanda. In one online support group they said:
“As Namibian youth we should stand together and support Cde Job Amupanda on this Affirmative action 2014..The time has come for our leaders to hear our cry... Time has come to stop paying rent & living in the silver town!”
Job encouraged them to use their cars to drive voters around and to donate their time and money to get him elected. The elections “ARE ABOUT THE YOUTH,” he claimed.
What Job said after the election
Yet, mere weeks after he was elected into office, in February 2021, Amupanda went on the attack against the people he had asked to vote for him, threatening water cuts. He also turned on the people he previously described as “our youth”, calling them worthless “drunks” and “completely useless.” (00::54:00)
In his impromptu rant against the “worthless” youth of the City on 14 April 2021, the newly elected mayor did not make any distinction between those who can afford services and those who cannot pay, lumping together those that were unwilling and those that were unable to pay as “completely useless”. (00::54:00)
Kick your children out!
From his high seat in Council, Amupanda poured “shame” on the young people of the City and went so far as to call on parents and grandparents to throw their children and grand-kids out of their homes. saying they should not allow the young to stay at home if they cannot pay into Council’s coffers, because that is “irresponsible love”.
The new mayor, who had just come into office on the backs of the youth vote, now turned around and said their parents should evict them (00::54:20):
“We encourage, even if it your child, chase them out of those houses, let them go and rent. … If you have a child in your house that is not paying for water and electricity in your house, chase them out,”
He told the residents he would not listen to their pleas, unless they evict their children.
“We are going to reach that stage [where] we will never listen to you. You must come to us and tell us what happened… this child has not been paying for water… you must state to us, you have chased those ones out and put in the new ones, whether it is your biological child [or not]. Then we can help you.”
Without considering the specific circumstances of families and children in context, given the problem of landlessness and high youth unemployment — which stands at 46,1% — he asked:
“Why do you want us to help you yet you are keeping that spoiled child, that spoiled brat in your house? And you are not taking responsibility?”
Whereas he was previously very concerned about the plight of young people, he now told elderly residents to “throw them out” onto the streets to find somewhere to rent.
So I’m very, very disappointed, particularly in the youth, so I’m sending a very clear message: we are no longer going to be abused because you are a pensioner. Chase them out of the house, they are irresponsible. They are not worthy and deservent (sic) of your love.”
What Job is now saying
Now that Amupanda has set his sights even higher and is running to be president he has suddenly remembered the worth and value of the youth and has turned again to ask them to back him in the election, encouraging them to register and vote for him.
Young people make up the largest voting bloc, and recognizing their power — given that 71,1% or 2,1 million Namibians are aged under 35 years — with the 2024 election in view, Job has now rediscovered his empathy for young voters and remembered that a vast number of youth are still trapped in hopeless poverty and unemployment.
Speaking to the media at Katima Mulilo in September, Amupanda said many young people have “given up on life due to unemployment” and that some spend their days inebriated because they have little else to do.
“Young people have nothing else to do but abuse drugs and alcohol. That’s the case of many young people in Zambezi region and the country as well. We need to ask ourselves how to solve these problems for them. We can’t have a situation where we govern a country of which the youth has given up on life.”
Amazingly, just in time for the 2024 election Job regained his sympathy for the impoverished youth, and his understanding of the effect of unemployment on the ability of people to pay their way — a fact he ignored when he demanded that their water be cut and they be thrown onto the streets by their parents if they cannot pay.
On the election trail last month he also remembered that “the youth in particular need serious interventions as a lack of employment opportunities continues to affect them.”
At that same presser, a young AR supporter, Glenn Shebo, pointed out a number of pertinent facts that the former mayor seemingly forgot or ignored when he insulted and slandered “the youth” as “worthless” and “completely useless” drunks. He said:
“The prisons are now filling up with young people who are forced to take part in criminal activities due to a lack of employment opportunities. Young girls engage in transactional sex just to get money to buy basic needs. These young people are brilliant, but due to financial challenges, not many make it to universities. If they are fortunate enough to go and complete their degrees, they just come back and remain unemployed. They then slowly lose hope. Many take their own lives…”
Conclusion
Clearly, there are historical and socioeconomic conditions not of their own making that affect the circumstances of young people and their ability to earn a living, issues that were not properly addressed by the Windhoek Coalition. But surely, if the learned Professor Amupanda is turning again to young voters to help him fulfill his lifelong ambition to be president of Namibia, the youth can’t be “completely useless”.
His own words and actions must lead us to conclude that Amupanda was lying when he claimed in Council on 14 April 2021 that the youth are “worthless” and deserve to be thrown out by their parents. Moreover, his statements and actions in office in notable respects contradict what he had said and promised before he was elected.
The question is whether young voters are prepared to be used again as voting fodder and then insulted after the election, and whether they will be fooled by the lies and promises of Amupanda, the self-proclaimed activist-in-chief and “incoming president”.