2016-10-31Staff Report 2 Windhoek Ovambanderu Chief Aletha Nguvauva has strongly defended her origins within the Nguvauva royal family, stressing that she legitimately occupies the throne of her late husband, Munjuku Nguvauva II, whom she says was her cousin. She explained in a press statement that she can longer accept “nonsense and rubbish” from those who under oath continue to deny and distort the historical facts of her origin within the Nguvauva family. Nguvauva believes this was done for selfish and petty personal reasons and said should the “character assassination and defamation” continue, she has the “energy and stamina” to take the necessary legal steps to defend her constitutional rights. She will further be demanding a public retraction and apology from those who had said and suggested she is not from the Nguvauva family by virtue of birth, but only by marriage. This notion, according to her, has become a national anthem among a minority of the Ovambanderu, adding that failure to heed her stern warning would have resounding consequences for her detractors. “Before my ascendance to the paramount chieftainship of the Ovambanderu that only took place in June 2011, a statutorily appointed investigation committee in terms of Section 12 of the [Traditional Authorities] Act investigated the Ovambanderu dispute relating to the battle for succession,” Nguvauva explained. “My name featured prominently because of association with my uncle, Keharanjo I, my late husband and coincidently my cousin Munjuku II, my mother’s grandmother Kovitjuuava, and our late son Keharanjo II,” she said. She said the official report on the Ovambanderu leadership dispute with its findings and recommendations, in which her name featured prominently as one of the descendants of the Nguvauva family, was released in August 2009. “I am related to two of the important persons in the Nguvauva family, notably Keharanjo I and Kovitjuuava. In addition, I was married to my late cousin, and gave birth to our late beloved son, Keharanjo II.” After narrating how she ascended to power, she did not mince her words and said the appointment was never interdicted, nor was it taken to the courts to be declared inconsistent with applicable Ovambanderu customary law and related statutory provisions. “Thus, based on legal and factual grounds, we respectfully reject with the contempt it deserves the notion that I am not a paramount chief, because there is a chief in terms of the Act. As a law-abiding citizen, I would only abdicate from this position of responsibility once the due process of law to dethrone me as paramount chief has been effected.” “I am now challenging the minority section of the Ovambanderu community to take that task if they think that they have a case and to stop gimmicks and rhetoric.” Furthermore, Nguvauva indicated it is very likely that she would soon table to the Judicial Service Commission evidence of what they consider reasonable suspicions of bias and apprehension on the part of certain judicial officers, who presided over cases in the Ovambanderu community. She also said there are those within the Ovambanderu community, who have “unilaterally, arbitrarily and capriciously” taken a decision to dissolve all Ovambanderu leadership positions and called for the holding of elections to elect senior traditional councilors and traditional councilors. These insinuations Nguvauva rejected vehemently, as they have not been done procedurally and were not consented to by the majority of Ovambanderu people, who resort under her leadership, she said. “In principle, I have no qualm with the holding of the election, provided it is done in a regular and procedural manner. “I am intending to propose that it must be entrusted under the auspices of an electoral body, or in consultation with the line minister, as opposed to the way it is currently done.” She also appealed to government to consider implementing standard procedures and national conventions with regard to the gazetting and de-gazetting of public officials. 2016-10-31Staff Report 2
