THE HONEST IMPACT with Gideon Kapuka

Once upon a time, a degree was something you earned properly, sleepless nights, dry pockets, stress that makes you age faster than your birth certificate. You would wake up tired, sleep tired, dream in exam questions. Nowadays? Nah. Namibia upgraded the system. Degrees are no longer studied for. They are caught. Just be in the wrong, or right, place at the right time with the right “connection.” Sharp. You enter any campus in this country and you see two types of students. One is running to class like the bell is chasing them, files under the arm, stomach empty, mind full of stress, saying “ai my guy, this semester is killing me.” The other is moving slow-slow, fresh like payday Friday, always laughing, always online, never attending lectures but somehow passing. Same school. Same course. Different tactics, boss. The brochure will lie to you nicely. It will talk about ethics, integrity, research, academic honesty. That thing is just for decoration. The real learning happens quietly. In...

In Namibia’s public service, ninety-nine percent often means nothing. Candidates walk into interview rooms carrying scripts that are not theirs, memorized answers sold or leaked from the inside, and somehow emerge with near-perfect scores on written tests. But the illusion shatters in the oral interview, where comprehension crumbles and confidence evaporates, leaving barely five percent to show for it. The verdict lands quietly: unfit for the position. Then the post is recycled, re-advertised, panels reconvene, and taxpayer money vanishes into a black hole of dishonesty. Meanwhile, honest Namibians sit at home, watching opportunities built on merit dissolve before their eyes, replaced by empty promises and recycled lies. This is not a story of nerves or coincidence. It is deliberate deception, collusion, and corruption hiding in plain sight. Interview questions are leaked from the very ministries, regional offices, parastatals, and agencies entrusted with running our country. Answers a...

Come walk with me for a moment. Not on the tar roads where things are neat and names are known. Turn off where the dust starts rising even before your feet touch the ground. Where the wind talks to zinc like it is angry. This is where we stay. This is the location. Shacks stand close to each other, not because there is no space, but because even zinc understands community. Rust on the outside, life on the inside. The smell of kapana smoke mixes with firewood and sand after rain. Streets do not have names here, only directions. “Turn by the green shack.” “Next to that container.” People pass us fast. Windows up. Eyes forward. Like if they look too long, poverty will follow them home. They say it quietly, sometimes loudly. Those people are dirty. All because we live in shacks. All because our struggle is visible. But inside these shacks, life is busy happening. A mother wakes up before sunrise, not because she wants to, but because survival does not sleep. She boils water on a paraffin s...

Manipulated minds won’t get this. They never do. To them, anyone who questions the system is either “demonic,” “lost,” or in urgent need of extra prayer sessions, preferably three times a day. Morning, lunch, and night. Because apparently poverty responds best to noise. Let’s start with a history lesson that never makes it into Sunday sermons. Slaves were allowed to go to church on Sundays, but they were not allowed water breaks during the week. Worship was permitted. Rest was not. Salvation for the soul, exhaustion for the body. That alone should tell you everything about how religion was deployed. Not to liberate, but to pacify. Not to awaken, but to sedate. Christianity did not land in Africa in its original form. It went through a long journey of mutation. It started in Israel as a family, a way of life rooted in community and shared responsibility. It moved to Rome, where it became a religion, structured, regulated, and institutionalized. From Rome it went to England, where it was...

Namibia is tired, confused, and slightly entertained. Because apparently, when a minister actually wakes up, reads the law, and applies it, the nation must hold an emergency debate. Suddenly the question is not whether service delivery is improving, but whether James Sankwasa is overshadowing the presidency. Imagine that. Doing your job so well that people think you’re campaigning. Let’s be honest. Namibians are not used to ministers who move like this. We are used to workshops, task teams, “we note with concern” statements, and investigations that age like good wine but never get opened. Then Sankwasa arrived and decided to work in public. Loudly. Consistently. Without apologising. Now everyone is uncomfortable. Corruption, which usually receives polite warnings and endless meetings, got something different this time. No sympathy, no soft landings, just direct questions and real consequences. Local authorities that were very brave on paper suddenly became very quiet. Others discovered...

Let’s not lie to ourselves, my people. This Fishrot case has turned into that thing we all know too well in Namibia: “we’ll see tomorrow.” Tomorrow comes, the sun rises, the case appears on the roll, and then, neh, another application. Not witnesses. Not evidence. Just lawyers standing up nicely to say, “Before we go anywhere, Your Lordship…” Go where? We’ve been parked here since 2019. Outside court, people are hustling. Taxi drivers are shouting destinations, graduates are looking for jobs, rents are increasing, and life is moving. Inside court, time is on “wait first.” Namibia is hot, but that courtroom is cold, boss. Years pass, but the case is still young, too young to be tested and too old to be exciting. Let’s be straight. This is not confusion or being unprepared. This is a proper plan. In the streets we say, “Just delay until things calm down.” In legal English, it is called exercising constitutional rights. Same thing, different jacket. Everything is legal, everything is poli...