Bernard Kavau
Former and suspended leaders of the Namibia National Students Organisation (Nanso), Simon Amunime, Bernard Kavau and Tyson Hihanguapo have launched a new rival student representative body called the Students Union of Namibia.
The new organisation comes after the student leaders broke away from Nanso citing that they were being targeted for pointing out at the wrongs being committed by the Nanso leadership.
They accused the NANSO president Ester Simon of being captured by the political elites and not having the interest of students at heart.
The leaders were also on suspension during the time they formed the new organisation facing various charges emanating from putting the name of Nanso in bad light via the use of vulgar language, interfering in issues that were outside their scope as well as defrauding students.
“Wed decided that we cannot be held hostage. There were a lot of issues that we could not attend to because we were suspended. We resigned with immediate effect,” said Kavau.
President of NANSO, Ester Simon has, however, said she wished them well in their new endeavours but indicated that they had not followed official procedure when they resigned.
Now the new organisation has received the blessing of the South African Economic Freedom Fighters’ Student Command, as well as the Affirmative Repositioning.
AR’s Job Amupanda and Dimbulukeni Nauyoma graced the official launch which was marked by sloganeering as various student leaders from UNAM, Triumphant College, the National Institute of Technology and the International University of Technology endorsed them.
Now we take an in-depth look into the charges they were facing at NANSO
Tyson Hihanguapo
NANSO president, Ester Simon said the now-former national secretary for information Tyson Hihanguapo had stolen some monies from students in the name of NANSO at the beginning of the year.
According to Simon, he asked students to pay him money that he said would be used to register them at the University of Namibia (Unam).
According to Simon, aggrieved students approached their offices registering their discontent.
“It’s thousands of dollars and it’s more than one student. They said they wanted their money because they paid it to our Secretary for information. We went to the system to check to see if these students are anywhere at Unam and they were not. We called comrade Tyson. In fact, he was sent an email by the SG saying he must revert back and his answer was that ‘NANSO should payback because I was acting in my capacity as secretary for information’.
How do you take money from students pretending to go register them and you eat up their money? We cannot have national leaders that are dishonest like that. In fact, there is even a police charge because (one of the) students went to lay a charge against him,” said Simon.
Bernard Kavau
The now-former NANSO vice President Kavau has been accused of having press conferences and writing press releases without being authorized to do so.
Another charge was that of addressing the media without consultation from the national executive committee.
Simon Amunime
The now-former leader of the NANSO Khomas regional leadership, Amunime was charged with instigating students and sending wrong messages to the public in the name of the organisation.
Amunine was said to be bitter with Simon for having defeated him in the run-up to the presidency of Nanso.
