• Lamenting the past and present, for the future that should be……..

By: Vitalio Angula

Ndapanda Andreas – Kayoko’s 123 page offering titled, ‘Hey you, liberator’ is a fictional story that examines the relationship between Helena and Andimba and their lifelong friendship that began in primary school.

The book also bears stark resemblance to many developments in contemporary Namibian politics.

Helena, the main character, gets caught up in a web of lies and deceit when she lands a multi-million dollar consulting gig with a middle-eastern oil company to design its corporate strategy.

Themed around the subjects of power, leadership, corruption, greed and underhand dealings involving the natural resources Namibia is endowed with, Helena and her ‘love interest’, Andimba (who happens to be the Prime-Minister and Incoming President’s Son) experience a crisis of conscience.

The crisis is whether to join Andimba’s father’s presidential campaign or to shun politics altogether like other disenfranchised Namibian youth who have grown disillusioned and frustrated by a system that doesn’t allow them to participate freely in its economy.

Coincidently the book is published in the same year Namibia’s Minister of Mines and Energy, Tom Alweendo, announced the discovery of commercially viable quantities of oil along the country’s coastline.

This adds to the book’s relevance and correlation to events as they unfold in post-independence Namibia.

Alongside the hope of the recent oil discoveries is the despair and anxiety that fills the minds and hearts of many Namibian youths who question whether this multibillion dollar industry and the cash-flow that accrues from it will trickle down to the grassroots and elevate them out of the misery of poverty.

Despite the book’s designation as fiction, features like the statue of German colonialist Kurt Von Francois, the Studio 77 apartments along Independence Avenue, the coffee shop, the township of Wanaheda, Lady Pohamba Hospital, the yellow party and the unruly youth who want the age for contesting for the presidency reduced, make it hard to separate truth from fiction.

Namibia ranks as one of the most unequal societies in the world, with an estimated youth unemployment rate of over 34 percent.

Refusing to be a casualty in the army of unemployed masses, Helena founded a company, Dumanis Consultancy, five years after graduating from the local university.

Through sheer will and determination she has managed to run her consultancy services profitably enough to guarantee her a comfortable income, until she lands her biggest client yet – ‘the middle-easterners’.

Naively, she believes the fortunes that landed her the multi-million dollar contract are a result of her hard work, experience and business acumen.

Until Andimba’s father, the Prime Minister, makes it known to her that it is the close relationship she has with his son, Andimba that got her the client in the first place.

He was the man behind the scenes who ensured she got the contract and he would like her to return the favor by running his campaign for the next presidential elections in which he will be the candidate for the liberator party.

Hesitantly she agrees, and this is where the suspense begins to build up in the first part of the Nation Builder Series, a series of books that will tell the story of Helena, Andimba, the Big Man, and the Middle-Easterners and how they navigate the corridors of power in getting Andimba’s father the top job in the country, the Presidency.

The author, Andreas-Kayoko says, “One can only appreciate the art of storytelling for its imaginative ability to tap into feelings and thoughts, often difficult to define or express in everyday language”.

A lucid read, the author keeps her language simple and terse.

The book, written entirely in English, contains dialogue from the Oshiwambo language, a vernacular indigenous to the main characters in the book, namely Helena and Andimba.