Ovaherero leadership battle in court
The hearing of a case about the disputed leadership of the Ovaherero Traditional Authority started in the Windhoek High Court this week.
In the case, acting judge Lotta Ambunda has two separate applications before her on which she will have to decide.
Ovitoto area traditional chief Vipuira Kapuuo, who is suing 57 respondents in the matter, is asking the court to declare that in terms of Ovaherero customary law, tradition and protocol the chairman of the Ovaherero Traditional Authority’s chief’s council – which is himself – becomes the acting paramount chief of the Ovaherero traditional community on the death or incapacitation of the paramount chief.
Kapuuo is asking the court to declare that he is the acting paramount chief of the Ovaherero traditional community.
Kapuuo is also asking the court to review and set aside a chief’s council meeting, held at Oderombapa in the Aminuis area in December 2021, and decisions taken at that meeting.
The meeting in question was called following the death of Ovaherero paramount chief Vekuii Rukoro in June 2021.
At the meeting, the chief’s council chose Mutjinde Katjiua as paramount chief designate of the Ovaherero traditional community.
The members of a transitional committee formed after Rukoro’s death are among the respondents being sued by Kapuuo. The Ovaherero Traditional Authority and six of the committee’s members – Katjiua, Boas Tjingaete, Tuendekuje Rukambe-Uazukuani, Mac Hengari and Amon Ngavetene – are opposing Kapuuo’s legal action, and have filed a counter-application against Kapuuo, Hoze Riruako, who at a meeting at Otjimbingwe in February 2023 was also chosen as paramount chief to succeed Rukoro, and the minister of urban and rural development.
In their counter-application, they are asking that the court direct what they term ‘the self-appointment’ of Kapuuo as acting paramount chief is null and void and to set it aside.
They are also asking the court to direct that chief’s council meetings called by Kapuuo in April and October 2022 and in February 2023, and decisions taken at those meetings, are null and void and to set it aside.
They are applying for an order that an application by Kapuuo for Riruako to be officially designated as the elected paramount chief of the Ovaherero Traditional Authority is null and void, and to declare that an application by the chief’s council for Katjiua to be designated as paramount chief is the only valid application that the minister of urban and rural development should consider and determine.
Kapuuo claims in a sworn statement filed at the court that the transitional committee, of which Katjiua is the chairperson, decided in June 2021 that the committee itself, instead of Kapuuo, would act as paramount chief following Rukoro’s death. Kapuuo says in his statement: “By the aforesaid purported resolutions, a scribbler, professor M Katjiua, has purportedly become the acting paramount chief of the Ovaherero.”
Kapuuo says according to Ovaherero customary law and protocol the chairman of the chief’s council – a position held by himself – becomes the acting paramount chief and a paramount chief is only nominated and thereafter elected at a senate meeting, and not at a chief’s council meeting.
The chief’s council meeting at which Katjiua was chosen as paramount chief in December 2021 was irregularly convened and not properly constituted, as it was attended by representatives of only nine of 28 constituencies of the Ovaherero community and by five of the 17 regiments of the community’s Red Flag commando, Kapuuo add.
According to Katjiua, however, 23 of the 28 members of the chief’s council voted against Kapuuo being appointed as acting paramount chief.
Katjiua also says in a sworn statement before the court that after the chief’s council meeting in December 2021, a senate meeting in March 2022 resolved to appoint Katjiua as paramount chief.
At another chief’s council meeting in April 2022, the choice of Katjiua as paramount chief was again supported and ratified, Katjiua also says.
The hearing of the case before Ambunda is continuing.
Senior counsel Raymond Heathcote, assisted by Japie Jacobs, is representing Kapuuo, on instructions from Petrie Theron. Senior counsel Reinhard Tötemeyer is representing the opposing respondents, assisted by Albert Strydom and Werner Boesak, on instructions from Katuna Kamuhanga.
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