President of the official opposition party, McHenry Venaani said the late ovaHerero Paramount Chief, Hosea Kutako, played a critical role in providing vision, direction and program in the fight for decolonisation.
Venaani said this during the 50th commemoration of the death of the chief, adding that Kutako is best described as one of the first founding fathers of the Namibian nation as he dedicated himself to seeking coalition for a unified fight for the independence of this country.
“As a democrat, Chief Kutako believed that adhering to the masses, as leaders, is recognising that the people are a fundamental force in deciding their destiny,” Venaani said.
He added that Kutako fully respected the wishes, experience, rights and roles of the people and exercised the power conferred on him by the people, in the best interest of the people.
Further praising the leadership of the late chief, Venaani said Kutako wanted to meet people’s expectations for a better life and not to allow leaders to be complacent but to work harder in an effort to enable everyone to share in the development, fairly.
Borrowing from the history books, Venaani narrated how Kutako travelled with his ill dad, following the Omahakari battle.
He said that Kutako’s prominence was profound to a point that the imperial German forces placed a bounty on his head.
This bounty led to his capture, but not for long as he, according to Venaani’s narration, masterminded a jailbreak and went hiding the mountains for a long time.
“He was re-arrested and committed to hard labour in the German concentration camps. Upon leaving the concentration camps, Kutako resumed his task of tracking and regrouping his people torn apart by the genocide,” Venaani said.
Venaani said that many victories the country has seen were brought about by Kutako’s contemporary approach to tackling the country’s issues.
The opposition leader highlighted that many leaders like Founding Father Dr Sam Nujoma passed through his era.
“One of the major roles Kutako played was when he provided successful counsel to Nujoma to leave the country via Kanaindo into Botswana. It was he who also saw off the current head of state at Gobabis as he left the country,” Venaani said.
Kutako established a chief’s council which, according to Venaani, found common ground with the Ovamboland People’s Organisation to agree on a working relationship for the joint mobilisation of the world’s support in Namibia’s struggle for liberation.
The official opposition party leader urged historians to help the country in recording history from the perspective of the Namibian people as Namibian history is not recorded.
