By Mbatjiua Ngavirue
The two Enkali brothers of Gobabis accuse Ministry of Lands official, Erastus Nghishoono, of continuing to harass them even now that the ministry has transferred him to Windhoek.
The two brothers, who share a resettlement farm with Nghishoono, though they thought they had finally seen the back of Nghishoono at least for a while. But no such luck.
Nghishoono showed up in Gobabis on Saturday, June 16, after another dispute flared up with Ben “Shinime” Enghali and Josef Enkali.
The Enkali brothers arrived at the resettlement farm Schellenberg 79 last Saturday to find the water supply from the borehole supplying their homestead was cut off.
Trouble started brewing when they requested Nghishoono’s niece, Elena, to turn the drinking water back on.
Elena, accompanied by another woman, Frieda, refused, saying Nghishoono instructed them to turn the water off because the Enkalis smeared his name in the newspapers.
When Shinime tried to go and reopen the water supply, Elena allegedly lunged at him with an iron bar held as if to strike him.
Shinime, however, managed to disarm her, but the two women then allegedly brandished pangas concealed under their clothing.
To keep the two – by now alarmingly wild-eyed Amazons – at bay, Josef Enkali had to throw a rock at Elena.
Elena’s main job is to run Nghishoono’s shebeen, Meduletu Bottle Store, on the resettlement farm.
The Enkalis further allege that the two women were possibly under the influence of another mind-altering substance – making them particularly dangerous at the time.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, the two brothers decided to beat a hasty retreat and rather go and report the matter to the Gobabis police.
According to the Enkalis, the police in Gobabis indicated that they would open a docket in connection with the attempted assault by the two women.
The police, however, further promised they would drive to the farm and remove the dangerous weapons from the two women.
To the surprise of the Enkalis, instead of going to the farm to investigate, the police instead telephoned Erastus Nghishoono who quickly rushed from Windhoek to Gobabis.
When Nghishoono arrived at Gobabis Police Station, the police attempted to resolve the matter with him in the presence of the Enkali brothers and their lawyer.
When one police officer allegedly suggested that the police should arrest the two women, Nghishoono allegedly protested loudly that he would not tolerate the arrest of his people.
He apparently claimed that since he was the first to lodge a complaint with the police on March 28, 2007 – claiming he felt threatened by the Enkalis – the Enkalis could not now lay a charge against him.
The Enkalis have, however, dismissed as absurd the charge by Nghishoono, saying that at the time Nghishoono made the complaint there was never any contact between them.
It remains a mystery why the Namibian Police first have to call someone from Windhoek when someone reports the commission of an alleged crime, instead of rushing to the crime scene.
Regional Commander of the Namibian Police in Omaheke, Deputy Commissioner Ananias Muzile, this weekend confirmed that the police are investigating a case of assault against the two women by way of threatening behaviour. He gave the assurance that the case is the subject of a police investigation.
The Enkalis faced a situation where they and their workers had to drink, cook and wash with dirty water from the open reservoir which the livestock also use to drink.
The situation became so intolerable later in the week, they had to take matters into their own hands and reconnect the drinking water.
The two women immediately retaliated by cutting off the water supply to the small stock drinking point, negatively affecting particularly young lambs and kids. The Enkali’s employees now have to cart whatever quantities of water they can manage to the small stock each day.
The exact nature of Erastus Nghishoono’s farming activities remains a mystery to this day. It is not even clear if he has engaged in any significant farming activities in the five years since the government resettled him on Schellenberg.
After five years, he reportedly owns only eleven head of cattle and maybe two dozen goats.
He sold off a considerable number of his goats to pay his relocation costs when the Ministry of Lands transferred him to Windhoek.
His main source of income over the five years seems to have been the Meduletu shebeen, where a baboon chained to a nearby tree keeps clients entertained.
Nghishoono’s other farming niche appears to be keeping tortoises – he has 24 of them in an enclosure attached to the main farmhouse. For what purpose Nghishoono keeps these tortoises is not clear.
The problem is, tortoises are a protected species in Namibia, and Schedule 4 of the Nature Conservation Ordinance No. 4 of 1975 strictly prohibits keeping tortoises in captivity.
Erastus Nghishoono and former Deputy Director at the Ministry of Lands, Simeon Kanyemba, invited the Enkalis to come and settle on Schellenberg, after ordering them to remove their stock from Drimiopsis.
The say they were made to understand by both Nghishoono and Kanyemba that they were being resettled on a permanent basis, in a move officially sanctioned by the ministry.
The great fear of the Enkalis is that they now appear to be standing alone against the full might of officialdom.
They initially received a sympathetic hearing from Governor Laura McLeod and the regional government, but say their recent receptions at regional government headquarters were extremely frosty.
The Enkalis suspect plans are afoot to have them chased off the farm, while nothing will happen to Nghishoono despite accusations of a lengthy list of alleged irregularities made against him.
Public servants the world over, are known to be “thick as thieves”, going to any lengths to protect each other at the expense of members of the public.
The Enkalis say they get the distinct feeling that officialdom is closing ranks against them, and fear they will become sacrificial lambs on the altar of public service solidarity.
The way in which the stand-off between the Enkalis and Nghishoono is resolved could provide important clues to the direction Namibia is taking as a country.
It could reveal whether what some describe as an unholy trinity of politicians, civil servants and top black businessmen is more interested in protecting their own “class interests”, or whether principles of natural justice and fair play will prevail.