OTJIWARONGO: Former Robben Island prisoner Lazarus Guiteb, on Monday remembered President Hage Geingob’s youthful days when he was a member of the Goldstar Brothers Band from Windhoek.
The 82-year-old Geingob died in the early hours of Sunday at a Windhoek hospital in the Khomas Region.
Guiteb, in an interview with Nampa, said Geingob was a cheerful young man in the 1960s, when he met him at a music concert in Otjiwarongo.
‘Geingob was a member of the Goldstar Brothers Band that used to travel from Windhoek and come perform in Otjiwarongo during the days when he was at Augustineum Secondary School,’ said Guiteb.
Guiteb said in 1977 he was arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison to Robben Island, he was kept until 1985.
In 1986 in Luanda, Angola, Guiteb met Geingob again in the liberation struggle meetings, where he discovered that Geingob had become a big senior Swapo leader and a people’s person.
The 81-year-old Guiteb further told that while in exile, he saw Geingob grow into several senior po
litical positions of Swapo, becoming a unifier and a true Namibian political hero.
Swapo Party coordinator in the Otjozondjupa Region Immanuel Namaseb, also on Monday said he was in shock upon hearing the death of Geingob on Sunday morning.
He however called on the Otjozondjupa residents to unite as that was Geingob’s ultimate desire for all Namibians.
Otjiwarongo Mayor Gottlieb Shivute on his part said Geingob’s death touched everyone in Otjiwarongo.
Shivute then extended the Otjiwarongo Municipality’s message of condolences to the former First Lady Monica Geingos, as well as to Geingob’s family still residing in Otjiwarongo, Otavi, Grootfotein, Tsumeb and Windhoek.
Source: The Namibia Press Agency