AS far as the Kilus Nguvauva faction of the divided Ovambanderu community is concerned, ‘there is only one horse left in the race [for chieftainship]’.
So said Kapanola Marenga – a senior advisor to the supreme council of the Ovambanderu traditional authority.Kilus Nguvauva was however reluctant to say whether they would challenge Aletta Nguvauva’s appointment as ‘paramount chief designate’.He said a decision in this regard would be based on ‘what the Ovambanderu people decide’.Addressing about 300 people in Katutura yesterday, Kilus Nguvauva said he was embarrassed, shocked and saddened ‘by the unheard of and disgracing announcement of my brother’s [Keharanjo II Nguvauva’s] death by the concerned group’.He said it was ‘the norm’ in the Ovambanderu community that suicides are announced as a ‘sudden death’. Keharanjo Nguvauva took his own life in Windhoek on April 8.Kilus Nguvauva, the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, said he was equally upset about the reasons cited for his half-brother’s suicide. ‘All good-minded Namibians, including myself, were shocked at the heartless and callous conduct of the very group that potentially could be responsible for my brother’s suicide to announce the reasons for him taking his own life was because ‘he was tired of being a drunkard’ and that he was an ‘unrehabilitated alcoholic’.’Regarding the three-page suicide note that Keharanjo Nguvauva left, Kilus Nguvauva said: ‘Objective analysis and interpretation of the suicide notes clearly demonstrate that during his final moment of darkness, he remembered only those he loved most.’He was part of the ‘most loved ones’, Kilus Nguvauva claimed. ‘His message to me was the very last. It is a sign that he remembered me in his very last moment as there was no bad blood between us.’When Keharanjo Nguvauva warned the deputy minister that should he take the Ovambanderu throne he won’t have a single day of rest, he apparently meant that ‘the concerned group will continue to oppose [Kilus Nguvauva], trying to frustrate and make life hell as they did to him until he could no longer take the pressure and had to succumb by taking his own life in such a painful fashion’, Kilus Nguvauva said yesterday.Regarding Aletta Nguvauva’s subsequent election as successor to her son, Kilus Nguvauva said it is ‘unheard of and opportunistic’ and ‘violates and has no regard for the rich Ovambanderu culture norms and standards’.Kilus Nguvauva also lashed out at the media and the Inspector General of the Namibian Police, Lieutenant General Sebastian Ndeitunga, for allegedly siding with the concerned group.In an apparent reference to former President Sam Nujoma referring to Keharanjo Nguvauva as the paramount chief at a memorial service held in Windhoek in April, Kilus Nguvauva charged that his ‘chieftaincy was never dependent, is never dependent and will never be dependent on the whims and behaviour of any political leader’.
