THE swearing-in of a new traditional leader of the Witbooi Nama community at Gibeon on Saturday was preceded by a legal battle in the Windhoek High Court on Thursday, with a cousin of the newly installed kaptein Hendrik Ismael Witbooi failing with an attempt to stop the new chief’s installation as leader of their community.
The bid to stop the coronation of Ismael Witbooi failed on Friday morning, when judge Thomas Masuku struck an application for an interdict to prevent the ceremony from going ahead off the court roll, since it did not pass the test to be heard as an urgent case.
Judge Masuku said reasons for his ruling would be made available on Friday this week.
The judge’s ruling is the second within the past two weeks in cases involving disputes over the succession to major traditional leadership positions in Namibia.
In a similar case that judge Masuku heard the previous week, he also ruled that an application to prevent the crowning of Fillemon Shuumbwa Nangolo as new traditional chief of the Ondonga community did not meet the requirements to be heard as an urgent matter.
A former Namibian high commissioner to Zambia, Salomon Josephat Witbooi (62), who is a member of the Witbooi royal house, fellow royal house members Anna Jacobs, who is his mother, Elizabeth Kock and Christina Fredricks, and the spokesperson of the Witbooi royal family, Penias Topnaar, were asking the court for an interdict to stop the designation of Ismael Witbooi (47), who is a cousin of Salomon Witbooi, as chief of the Witbooi clan.
They were also asking the court to stop Ismael Witbooi’s scheduled coronation 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 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 2015, he said in an affidavit filed at the court.
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.
In another affidavit, also filed at the court, Ismael Witbooi stated that following the death of Hendrik Witbooi in 2009, he was initially the only nominee from the royal family to succeed the late kaptein.
However, when discussions about the succession to the position of traditional leader of the Witbooi clan became intertwined with a religious split in the community, some people – including Salomon Witbooi and other members of the royal family – began to put pressure on him to renounce his membership of the New African Methodist Episcopal Church, and to join the AME Church, Ismael Witbooi said in his affidavit.
He claimed that Salomon Witbooi put him “under tremendous pressure” to renounce his membership of the New AME Church as a precondition to his succession as traditional chief, and stated that “had it not been for my refusal to be bullied and intimidated”, he and Salomon Witbooi would not have been involved in the court case, as he would have been crowned with no qualms.
He further stated that after he defied demands to renounce his membership of the New AME Church, he was informed near the end of 2011 that Salomon Witbooi would be considered as a candidate to the chieftaincy.
However, Ismael Witbooi also stated, as a paternal descendant of anti-colonialism resistance hero Hendrik Witbooi (1830-1905), who was his great-great-grandfather, he was the only eligible candidate to ascend to the position of kaptein of the Witbooi community.
He further claimed that the coronation of Salomon Witbooi had been illegal, and had been done against Witbooi customary practices of leadership succession though patrilineal lineage, as Salomon Witbooi is related to the Witbooi traditional leaders through his mother, Anna Jacobs, who is a sister of the late kaptein Hendrik Witbooi.
In an affidavit also filed at the court, Mushelenga said 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.
Mushelenga also said he considered both applications for the recognition of a new Witbooi traditional leader, as well as a report of a committee that investigated the competing applications, and argued that the proper processes in terms of the Traditional Authorities Act were followed before he designated Ismael Witbooi as the new kaptein.
The minister further denied allegations that he was not impartial when he approved the application in favour of Ismael Witbooi, and denied that he did not act fairly or reasonably when he made his decision.
Legal counsel Dennis Khama, instructed by Abe Naude, represented the applicants in the case. Government lawyers Ngatatue Kandovazu, Sylvia Kahengombe and Jolanda van der Byl represented the minister and other respondents.
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