Mbanderu leaders call off annual Okahandja event

THE Supreme Council of the deeply divided Ovambanderu community has called off an annual commemorative event scheduled for early next month at Okahandja due to unresolved differences about who the real traditional chief is.

‘The Supreme Council has met over the weekend near Epukiro in the Omaheke Region and it was decided not to hold the annual event, as the chieftainship issue is not yet resolved,’ Uazenga Tjiposa, spokesperson for acting Chief Peter Nguvauva, told The Namibian yesterday. ‘Anyone of the community intending to hold such an event at Okahandja will be dealt with accordingly.’But a rival group within the community has vowed to stage the commemoration in June.’We will go ahead,’ said Senior Traditional Councillor Erastus Kahuure when approached yesterday. Last year the annual commemoration in honour of the Ovambanderu ancestral leader, Chief Kahimemua, who was executed by the German colonial government at Okahandja in June 1896 for having staged the first armed resistance against Imperial Germany, was called off. This was because Chief Munjuku II Nguvauva, his grandson, died at the age of 84 in January last year. It is tradition in that community to have one year of mourning. Munjuku II was buried next to Kahimemua. The 2007 annual Okahandja event was riddled with tension as two Ovambanderu factions, one calling itself the ‘Concerned Group’ under Senior Traditional Councillor Erastus Kahuure, were in dispute about a new constitution of that traditional authority, which the concerned group refused to recognise. They took the matter to court and won in the first instance, but lost in the Supreme Court, where the other group under Kilus Nguvavua had appealed against the High Court ruling.The split deepened after Chief Munjuku’s death since his older son Kilus claimed he was chosen by his father to be his successor, while Kilus’s younger half brother Keharanjo and his mother Aletta Karikondua Nguvauva claimed that the late Chief had declared him as successor.Kahuure and the concerned group went ahead and inaugurated Keharanjo as the new Chief in August 2008, which created more tensions. The Ministry of Local and Regional Government has not yet recognised him. The Traditional Authorities stipulates that when a dispute is declared, the Ministry has to investigate the matter and come to a finding.’This has not yet happened,’ Tjiposa told The Namibian yesterday. We are waiting for the Ministry to appoint an investigative committee and to deal with the matter as our community members do not know where they stand.’According to Kahuure, Keharanjo is the rightful successor. ‘There is no doubt about that and that is why he was installed according to our tradition. The Chief should have called the Supreme Council together, not the others,’ Kahuure said yesterday from his farm in Omaheke. ‘Chief Keharanjo will hold the commemoration at Okahandja,’ he added. brigitte@namibian.com.na