WINDHOEK – The Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA) has petitioned President Hifikepunye Pohamba to gazette their chosen leaders as they are still struggling for governmnent’s recognition six years after government recognized the OTA.
“The Ovaherero community has a grave concern. We are being oppressed in our own country,” Bethold Tjiunde, an Aminuis traditional chief read in a statement on behalf of the OTA to a fully packed hall at the Red Flag Commando in Katutura on Friday.
He said that the OTA had written many letters to the authorities to have their problems attended to but apparently this turned into an exercise in futility, as there was no reply.
The OTA say they have also knocked at the doors of the Minister of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development, Lieutenant-General Charles Namoloh without success.
Tjiunde said that even theOvaherero Paramount Chief Kuaima Riruako was gazetted but their councillors are still struggling to be recognized with other traditional authorities, adding that they are scattered in the jurisdiction of others.
“This lack of gazetting is posing difficulties in the proper expedition of our duties as an Ovaherero Traditional Authority,” said Tjiundje, adding that government and its officials “do not seem to recognize the OTA as a bona fide and legal authority that it needs to communicate with”. He said other traditional authorities have councillors in areas presumed to belong to other traditional authorities but they are being recognized and gazetted.
But the Deputy Director of Regional Councils and Traditional Auhtorities in the Ministry of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development, Prisca Nangoma Anyolo, said last year at the stakeholder information sharing meeting on communal land in Gobabis that the only way to avoid overlapping and conflicts between different traditional authorities in the Omaheke Region is to have people in a certain constituency or area falling under one recognized authority irrespective of their origin. She said government was weighing up such a reform, which she said would hopefully resolve the problem of giving recognition to traditional authorities, their chiefs and councillors.
“It is like we are no more in an independent Namibia, we are creating homelands again. We must learn to live in peace with our neighbours,” she stressed, adding that sometimes politics get into traditional matters and bring about confusion.
Anyolo referred to traditional authorities in the north where as an example one would fall under the Oukwanyama Traditional Authority whether one speaks Chokwe, Otjiherero, Nama or Ndonga. She proposed that for example in Aminuis the recognized traditional authority be the Ovaherero Traditional Authority and whether you belong to the Zeraua, Chief Kgosiemang (late), or Bakglagadi, you fall under that traditional authority.
Making another example she spoke of the Epukiro Constituency, where the Ovambanderu Traditional Authority is recognized, saying that if you live in that area you must fall under that authority.
But the majority of traditional leaders have rejected such a move, saying that it would bring division and clashes between already established traditional authorities living in one constituency or area. Acting Chief of the Batswana ba Namibia Traditional Authority, Jamian Lebereki, said that bringing one traditional authority under another would bring chaos.
He said it was fine for traditional authorities to work together and assist subjects of another traditional authority falling under his jurisdiction, but to say one authority should rule over another would not be right.
Chief Frederick Langman of the #Kao //Aesi Traditional Authority shared Lebereki’s sentiments, saying that although most of his followers are based in the northern part of Gobabis, many are scattered all over Epukiro, Aminuis, Skoonheid, Otjombinde, Eiseb and Otjinene.
He said that traditions differ and the reason traditional authorities have been instituted is to improve the living conditions of people under his jurisdiction.
Chief Tumbee Tjombe of the Ovaherero Traditional Authority is also adamant that such a move would bring further hostility between the traditional authorities.
“If we (traditional authorities) understood each other from the onset, it would have been easy,” he reckoned, saying that government should not have left a vacuum for everyone to start choosing or creating own leaders.
Regional councillors, traditional leaders and others are also encouraged to register for communal land rights before the end of February deadline.
Governor of Omaheke Festus Ueitele made an appeal last year to all to register for rights to communal land for security of tenure.
He further explained that the Communal Land Reform Act (No 5 of 2002) was enacted with the purpose of improving the system of communal land tenure and authorized the creation of communal land boards in all regions of Namibia, which are empowered to oversee the allocation and cancellation of customary land rights by chiefs and traditional authorities.
By Magreth Nunuhe