One of the claimant Ovaherero Traditional Authority paramount chiefs, academic Mutjinde Katjiua, says he has located his mission for the polarised community, but like his predecessors, he too faces counter-revolutionary forces.
Katjiua, in a dossier availed to the media, details how he intends to steer the OTA ship to the proverbial ‘Promised Land’.
The document, seen by New Era, was presented over the weekend in the Garden Town, Okahandja, to loyalists of the OTA faction that recognise the scholar as their Ombara Otjitambi (paramount chief).
The event happened while another faction, some 130 kilometres away in Otjimbingwe, under the tutelage of Ovitoto chief and OTA chiefs council chairperson Vipuira Kapuuo, was electing a candidate to occupy the same position purportedly filled by Katjiua.
That group elected another academic, Hoze Riruako, as their paramount chief. It effectively means the OTA now has two individuals occupying its apex position – Katjiua and Riruako.
The events of Otjimbingwe, however, did not deter Katjiua from spreading his gospel.
Before delving into his own agenda, Katjiua lectured and acknowledged the contributions of those who came before him, starting from Maharero ua Tjamuaha, Samuel Maharero, Hosea Kutako, Clemence Kapuuo, Kuaima Riruako and Advocate Vekuii Rukoro, his immediate predecessor.
At the onset, it was evident that while Katjiua has his own dreams, he also wants to complete Rukoro’s incomplete projects.
As first ever OTA secretary general, Katjiua was Rukoro’s right-hand-man, until the latter’s demise in 2021.
“His (Rukoro’s) urgency in seeing reparations paid to the Ovaherero and Nama people gathered dark forces within the ranks of OTA that saw his uncompromising stance as denying them the spoils of selling the nation to the State-to-State reparation negotiation process. The dark forces multiplied as they were amassed and sponsored by the Namibian state machinery,” the academic claimed.
He then moved to his own mission, which is hinged on four thematic areas.
Chiefly, he says, the OTA shall no longer remain prey to “hungry vultures, who are, in any case, externally controlled to destroy the 160 years of governance and legacy and plunge the Ovaherero into perpetual poverty and marginalisation.”
Also, alongside Gaob Johannes Isaack – the chairperson of the Nama Traditional Leaders Association and chair of the Joint Campaign for Restorative Justice, – Katjiua vowed to intensify efforts to bring the genocide matter to a close.
“Together with the Landless People’s Movement it is testimony to our tenacity and unwavering defiance against those who want to rob the Ovaherero and Nama people of the reparation payment. We shall not allow that!” Katjiua charges.
Like Rukoro, Katjiua too does not want to lead a poor community.
“We will work hard to eliminate hunger in our communities and improve the standard of living among our people… we have no reason to be poor. The leadership will come up with economic advancement projects. All I want from the rank and file is that you all rally behind these interventions!” he said in the document.
He then took a dig at the government accusing it of subjecting the Ovaherero community to 33 years of neglect, underdevelopment and marginalisation.
“I am not complaining but reminding you of what you already know,” he said.
The neglect, he claimed, is manifested in the following manner: underdevelopment of and poor access to schools, poor access to scholarships, grossly inadequate rural electrification and poor roads infrastructure.
“There is a complete absence of agricultural development, be it marketing infrastructure, extension or veterinary services as well as limited access to government tenders and under-representation in government land reform programmes, specifically the resettlement programme,” Katjiua ventilated.
He added: “We have been nothing else than a marginalised minority in our country for which our ancestors were almost exterminated by genocide and of which our land and livestock were wholly expropriated.”
He also pointed to the widely rejected genocide joint declaration between the Namibian and German governments.
“We reject the declaration in its totality because it is a denialist agreement of the two governments, aimed to further marginalise the Ovaherero and Nama people of Namibia, while gruesomely denying the Ovaherero and Nama who fled the then Deutsch-Südwestafrika to current day Botswana, South Africa, and Angola, and in recent history those in the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Canada,” he said further.
– emumbuu@nepc.com.na