The Independent Patriots for Change are forging ahead with their intended lawsuit of N$500 000 against NamRights director Phil Ya Nangoloh for alleged slander. 

This was confirmed yesterday by IPC spokesperson Imms Nashinge. IPC is lodging the suit over WhatsApp messages Ya Nangoloh posted, suggesting that an “activist” of the party posted an audio message in which he says that he wishes President Hage Geingob is dead. 

According to a letter sent to Ya Nangoloh by Henry Shimutwikeni, the legal representative of IPC, the party said it is aggrieved by messages Ya Nangoloh authored that say the original post was from a member of the party. 

According to them, the author of the original post, Jonas Immanuel Muukeshe, is not a member or an “activist” of the party and his name appears nowhere on their database. In the letter of demand, Shimutwikeni demanded that Ya Nangoloh retracts the statements, publish an unreserved apology, and unequivocally withdraw “all the aspects of your messages which attempt to put the IPC within the domain of the said audio messages as per your false defamatory innuendos, insinuations, suggestions, and statements”. 

The IPC further lamented the fact that by authoring and distributing the said false messages, Ya Nangoloh maliciously intended for the message to be understood by recipients to mean that IPC is associated with persons who threaten the life of the President of the Republic of Namibia and/or by extension IPC has threatened the life of the head of state. 

 IPC further accused Ya Nangoloh of having a “predisposition towards making unfounded provocative statements on social media platforms under various pseudonyms with the sole aim of tarnishing its name.

 “IPC is baffled by your resolve to pertinently refer to the said Jonas Immanuel Muukeshe as an IPC activist when the said audio makes no mention of the same,” the party stated. 

They further said that the widely circulated messages by Ya Nangoloh have led to other instances reporting on the incidence as one, which involves the IPC. Efforts to get hold of Ya Nangoloh proved futile as messages left on his cell phone were not returned by the time of writing the article. The Namibian newspaper reported yesterday that Ya Nangoloh is adamant that he will not apologise for his utterances and dared the IPC to take him to court.

rrouth@nepc.com.na