Africa-Press – Namibia. REINHOLD Shipwiikineni, the controversial Walvis Bay-based political activist, is at it again. Having previously given President Hage Geingob at least two ultimatums to vacate the State House; having instigated soldiers of the Namibian Defense Force (NDF) to resist a legitimate order from the Chief of the Defense Force and having spearheaded a petition and a demonstration against mandatory Covid-19 vaccination, he is now heading to court in an attempt to stop mandatory vaccination in Namibia and to have section 81 of the Defense Act declared unconstitutional.
Of course he needs money to pay lawyers, and has now resorted to begging. “The money is not refundable,” said Shipwiikineni. Himself a civilian, Shipwiikineni was the man behind what was labeled as a soldiers’ petition that was handed to the authorities during a peaceful demonstration in Windhoek on 21 October.
The demonstrators demanded a response on or before 26 October. “We have not yet received any response from President Geingob. We have consulted our lawyers for further steps,” said Shipwiikineni in an interview this morning.
He noted that the petition was not primarily about the soldiers, but about mandatory vaccination in general. However, he went on to claim that “more than 167 000 soldiers supported the petition and refused to take the so-called Covid-19 vaccines.”
Confronted about the clearly fictional number of soldiers that he disseminated on social media platforms for the past two days, Shipwiikineni immediately removed one digit, making it 16 700 – a number that is still unrealistic.
Shipwiikineni eventually claimed that the petition was signed by “close to 85 000 people”, but only 4 000 signatures accompanied the petition that was handed over to government “because it was difficult for us to make copies”.
Since the petition only required the first name, surname and signature, there is no way to know how many signers were soldiers. NDF spokesperson, Lieutenant-Colonel Tangeni Shikomba said that the vaccination of soldiers is continuing and many soldiers already got the jab voluntarily.
He said that the vaccination order was not meant to force, but rather to encourage soldiers to get the jab. He could not provide the percentage of NDF members vaccinated so far.
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