Witbooi leadership dispute leads to court battle

THE two contenders to the traditional leadership of the Witbooi Nama clan are due to hear on Friday if an attempt to stop the ceremonial swearing-in of one of them on Saturday will be heard as an urgent matter in the Windhoek High Court.

Judge Thomas Masuku on Thursday reserved his ruling on the question whether an application to stop the scheduled inauguration of Hendrik Ismael Witbooi as traditional leader, or kaptein, of the Witbooi traditional community should be heard on an urgent basis, after hearing more than four hours of oral arguments on that point. The judge said he would deliver his ruling on the disputed urgency of the case before him on Friday morning.

A former Namibian high commissioner to Zambia, Salomon Josephat Witbooi (61), who is also a member of the Witbooi royal house, fellow royal house members Elizabeth Kock, Christina Fredricks and Anna Jacobs, and the spokesperson of the Witbooi royal family, Penias Topnaar, are asking the court for an interdict to stop the designation of a cousin of Witbooi, Hendrik Ismael Witbooi (47), as chief of the Witbooi clan. They are also asking the court to stop Ismael Witbooi’s scheduled coronation at Gibeon on Saturday, and to order the minister of urban and rural development, Peya Mushelenga, not to further implement his decision to designate Ismael Witbooi as kaptein of the Witbooi community.

Salomon and Ismael Witbooi are cousins, and are both nephews of the late Kaptein Hendrik Witbooi, former deputy prime minister of Namibia and traditional leader of the Witbooi community from 1978 until his death in 2009.

According to Salomon Witbooi, he was duly nominated by authorised members of the Witbooi royal family to succeed the late Kaptein Hendrik Witbooi after the community’s acting chief, Christiaan Rooi, died in 2015. The Witbooi Traditional Council also endorsed his nomination, and he was inaugurated as chief in 2915, he says.

An application to have his designation as traditional leader approved was made to the minister of urban and rural development, but on 22 May this year Mushelenga decided to approve another application, which was to have Ismael Witbooi officially recognised as chief.

Mushelenga says, in an affidavit filed at the court, that only the application to have Ismael Witbooi recognised as chief was supported by the Witbooi Traditional Authority, which is the designated traditional authority for the Witbooi community.

He denies allegations that he was not impartial when he approved the application in favour of Ismael Witbooi, and also denies that he did not act fairly or reasonably when he made his decision.

Legal counsel Dennis Khama, instructed by Abe Naude, is representing the applicants in the case. Government lawyers Ngatatue Kandovazu, Sylvia Kahengombe and Jolanda van der Byl are representing the minister and other respondents.