AN ATTEMPT to stop the ceremonial inauguration of Fillemon Shuumbwa Nangolo as the new chief of the Ondonga traditional community has failed in the Windhoek High Court.
An application to stop Nangolo’s installation as Ondonga chief or king was struck from the court roll by judge Thomas Masuku on Friday afternoon, based on a finding that the application did not meet the requirements to be heard as an urgent matter.
The application was filed at the Windhoek High Court on Wednesday last week. This week Thursday, judge Masuku was in court until after 21h00 as he heard hours of oral arguments on the question whether the case had to be heard as an urgent matter. In the end, the scale swung against the applicants in the matter on that point.
Nangolo (41) is due to be publicly installed as Ondonga chief at Onambango in the Ondangwa area on Saturday.
The traditional council of the Ondonga Traditional Authority installed Nangolo – who had been the deputy chief under the late King Immanuel Kauluma Elifas since 2002 – as the king’s successor on 14 April. On the same day, members of the royal family installed Konisa Eino Kalenga (55), a nephew of the late king, as his successor.
Separate applications to have the designation of both Nangolo and Kalenga as chief approved in terms of the Traditional Authorities Act were subsequently made to the minister of urban and rural development, Peya Mushelenga, who on 10 June approved the designation of Nangolo.
In the application which judge Masuku struck off the court roll, Kalenga, royal family members Selma Shejavali, Hileni Auala, Hilma Nambahu, Aily Petrus and Ester Nepando, and senior traditional councillor Naeman Amalwa tried to challenge the legality of the Ondonga traditional councillors’ designation of Nangolo as the new Ondonga king.
The eighth applicant in the case was the Ondonga Traditional Authority – but some of the respondents in the case disputed that this was the genuine and legal traditional authority.
Kalenga and the other applicants were asking the court to order Mushelenga not to further implement his decision to approve the designation of Nangolo as traditional leader of the Ondonga community. They also wanted the court to review and set aside Mushelenga’s decision to approve the designation of Nangolo as Ondonga chief.
They further tried to obtain a court order that would have stopped Nangolo from continuing with his crowning as Ondonga king on Saturday.
In an affidavit filed at the court, Kalenga claimed that in terms of the customary law of the Aandonga people their chief or king should be nominated by authorised female members of the royal family after the previous chief had died. According to Kalenga, that was also the way in which he was nominated to succeed the late king, who died on 26 March.
According to Mushelenga, though, the royal family was not authorised in terms of Ondonga customary law to nominate Kalenga as new chief. The correct customary law position, Mushelenga informed the court, was that the elders of the Ondonga community – being the traditional councillors – had to nominate the chief, in consultation with the royal family.
Mushelenga also stated in an affidavit that the decision to appoint Nangolo as chief had been taken by twelve gazetted traditional councillors of the Ondonga community, while Kalenga’s designation had been recommended by only two of the 15 officially recognised traditional councillors.
In another affidavit filed at the court, a traditional councillor and royal family member, Anneli Sakaria, stated that the late king nominated Nangolo as his successor in 2002 and reaffirmed his decision in a letter in July 2012.
Sakaria also stated that Nangolo was already installed as Ondonga king in terms of customary law on 14 April, and that the “crowning ceremony” scheduled for Saturday would be “a mere cultural event to unveil [Nangolo] to the Ondonga traditional community”.
