Designation of Ondonga king challenged in court

A RULING on an attempt to stop the ceremonial inauguration of Fillemon Shuumbwa Nangolo as the new chief of the Ondonga community on Saturday is due to be given in the Windhoek High Court this afternoon.

The ruling that judge Thomas Masuku is set to deliver today is only on a preliminary point raised in an application to have Nangolo’s inauguration stopped, though. Judge Masuku reserved his ruling on the issue whether the application to have the ceremony stopped should be heard as a matter of urgency after a hearing that stretched into the night on Wednesday.

Konisa Eino Kalenga, whom some members of the Ondonga royal family have designated as successor to the late King Immanuel Kauluma Elifas, royal family members Selma Shejavali, Hileni Auala, Hilma Nambahu, Aily Petrus and Ester Nepando, and senior traditional councillor Naeman Amalwa are challenging the legality of Ondonga traditional councillors’ designation of Nangolo as the new Ondonga king.

The eighth applicant in the case is the Ondonga Traditional Authority – but some of the respondents in the case dispute that this is the genuine and legal traditional authority.

Kalenga and the other applicants are asking the court to order the minister of urban and rural development, Peya Mushelenga, not to further implement his decision to approve the designation of Nangolo as traditional leader of the Ondonga community. They also want the court to order Nangolo not to continue with his crowning as Ondonga king, which is set to take place at Onambango in the Ondangwa area northern Namibia on Saturday.

They are further asking the court to review and set aside Mushelenga’s decision, taken on 10 June, to approve the designation of Nangolo as Ondonga chief.

Kalenga is claiming in an affidavit filed at the court that, following the death of King Immanuel Kauluma Elifas on 26 March, authorised female members of the Ondonga royal family nominated him as the late king’s successor on 11 April.

According to Kalenga, it is the customary law of the Aandonga people that their chief or king should be nominated by authorised female members of the royal family.

Kalenga says an application to have his designation as Ondonga king approved in terms of the Traditional Authorities Act was subsequently sent to Mushelenga – but on 10 June he became aware that Mushelenga had instead approved the designation of Nangolo as king.

According to Kalenga, Nangolo was not nominated as the successor to the late king by authorised members of the royal family as required in terms of Ondonga customary law and the application to have his designation approved was not made by a chief’s council or traditional council as required by the law, with the result that Nangolo’s designation as king could not legally be approved by Mushelenga.

He is also claiming that the Ondonga Traditional Authority that backed Nangolo’s designation as king “is an illegal and unrecognised traditional authority” and had been set up by former traditional councillors whom the late king dismissed in 2017.

In an affidavit also filed at the court, Mushelenga recounts that members of the royal family under the leadership of Selma Shejavali installed Kalenga as successor to the late king on 14 April, while the traditional council of the Ondonga Traditional Authority installed Nangolo – who had been the deputy chief under the late king since 2002 – as successor on the same day.

Mushelenga says he later received applications for the approval of the designation of both Kalenga and Nangolo as chief of the Ondonga traditional community. While the decision to appoint Nangolo as chief had been taken by twelve gazetted traditional councillors of the Ondonga community, Kalenga’s designation had been recommended by only two of the 15 officially recognised traditional councillors.

Mushelenga not only disputes Kalenga’s account of Ondonga customary law on the nomination of a chief, but also charges that Kalenga “deliberately misrepresents” the customary law.

According to Mushelenga, the royal family, which nominated Kalenga as new chief, is not authorised in terms of customary law to do so. The correct customary law position, the minister says, is that the elders of the Ondonga community – being the traditional councillors – nominate the chief, in consultation with the royal family.

With regard to Kalenga’s claim that the decision to designate Nangolo as king had been taken by traditional councillors who had been dismissed by the late king, Mushelenga states: “As far as my office is concerned, the members of the traditional council remain in office and their dismissal cannot be brought up now on an urgent basis.”

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