Chief Hosea Kutako and his kin and nemesis, Headman Reinhardt Maekopo of Otjituuo

An impassioned plea from the Chairperson of Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA), neutrals and members of some communities to halt the succession process has been ignored.

An OTA Central Committee meeting some considered as organised by Professor Mutjinde Katjiua’s supporters for the paramountcy continued despite Ombara Vipuira Kapuuo’s demand letter to call it off.

An OTA Senate meeting that will confirm the new Ombara Otjitambi (Paramount Chief) is set to continue in disregard of Ombara Kapuuo’s second demand letter. The meetings have continued amid a clear split in the OTA CC with those in support of Katjiua’s Paramountcy urging others to announce their nominees while vouching to appoint the leader, despite disjointed pleas by other members of the community to be included as they feel that a small group has hijacked the process and railroaded everyone else.

After two meetings and seven months since late Ovaherero Paramount Chief Vekuii Rukoro died a casualty of the Delta variant of COVID-19, the Secretary General in his executive office, Professor Mutjinde Katjiua, has emerged the forerunner to succeed him.

An initial meeting at Okozonguehe (Ekango) in Kunene Region last November meant to forge harmony and unity of purpose in the community was aborted prematurely. Some leaders at that meeting had felt ambushed about succession while others protested their exclusion.

That meeting resolved for the Ovaherero Traditional Authority and its communities first to organise themselves before starting the process of appointing Advocate Rukoro’s successor. That position clearly made sense and was meant to give the community time to consider all the challenges it confronts, strategies to pursue in order to find lasting solutions before deciding the leader, who is capable of leading the community out of its current challenges.

A second meeting was held at Onderombapa in Aminuis the following month on 10-12  December 2021. It appointed Boas Tjingaete Acting Paramount Chief andnominated Prof Katjiua as the only candidate for Paramount Chief.

People close to the halls of power and with insights into wrangling at the helm of OTA leadership allege that the Onderombapa meeting proceeded on a date Ovitoto leader, Ombara Vipuirua Kapuuo, had set and backtracked from.

Sources speaking on condition of anonymity say Ombara Kapuuo had lost the confidence of the Chiefs’ Council after twice going back on his decisions to hold the meeting to nominate a new OTA leader. They say that he initially called and cancelled a meeting in Okahandja, and delayed calling the Otjiwarongo meeting, both meetings during last year (2021). When the Otjiwarongo meeting convened, he suspended it and set the Onderombapa meeting for 10-12 December 2021.

They allege that he again started to hesitate about holding the meeting when that date drew closer. It appears as though he started losing support of the Chief Council on the eve of late Professor Mburumba Kerina’s burial. The Chiefs’ Council sat and resolved to allow Professor Kerina to be buried at a church graveyard in Okahandja while Ombara Kapuuo, emphasizing that Kerina was late Paramount Chief Hosea Kutako’s emissary, wanted him buried in the OTA leaders’ graveyard, which was almost full.

It appears as though the tide shifted from behind Ombara Kapuuo to Chiefs’ Council Vice Chairperson Bethold Tjiundje, Ombara ya Mongua as 30 ozombara (chiefs) proceeded to call and host the meeting at Onderombapa.  The same place, Onderombapa  is now set to crown Mutjinde Katjiua Paramount Chief of Ovaherero on the weekend of Saturday, 5 March 2022.

If it goes through, Ombara Katjiua’s imminent appointment as Ombara Otjitambi  will not sit well with some leaders and members of the community whose cries of exclusion from nomination and succession as per the tradition have fallen on deaf ears.

Many of them feel that there had not been a process at all and others yearn the one followed by Ovaherero at Ombongarero ya Kahitua, which brought Ombara Otjitambi Kuaima Riruako to the helm.

Late Alex Kaputu and Asser Mbai are on record after Ombara Otjitambi Kuaima Riruako’s death as saying that the process starts after the mourning period (omutambo) and would have clan leaders asking their communities to propose possible leaders. Once nominated, those leaders were introduced to the community and a meeting was announced well in advance, where the OTA Senate will go through the nominees and find Ombara Otjitambi to crown. The meeting that appointed late Ombara Otjitambi Riruako had several nominees and deliberated for at least 3 weeks at Okahitua, before settling for an Onguatjindu proposal to have him as Paramount Chief while he was even in the USA.

Omutambo of Ombara Otjitambi Maharero was long and had Ozombara converging on Okahandja following his death in 1890 and leaving it early in 1891 with their nominee, Assa Riarua.

A normal succession process could enrich and allow for broader engagement of communities and their leaders.  The Genocide talks have become the main concern for Ovaherero and the drought of 2013, which saw them lose a lot of livestock, elevated dispossession of their land during successive colonial subjugations starting with the Germans, then the Boer administration and the loss of some land since Namibia’s independence.

A normal succession process could enrich and allow for broader engagement of communities and their leaders.  The Genocide talks have become the main concern for Ovaherero and the drought of 2013, which saw them lose a lot of livestock, elevated dispossession of their land during successive colonial subjugations starting with the Germans, then the Boer administration and the loss of some land since Namibia’s independence.

What is sending alarm bells ringing about the handling of divergent views and respect for the community’s venerated rituals and customs (whatever remains of them after the end of Okahandja commemorations in their traditional fashion and their erosion by the COVID-19 pandemic) is the accepting culture of how they are being trivialized.

And when the community looks back at how it conducted the nomination and inauguration of its leader, it would look like the leadership was decided based on fomenting fear about Ombara Kapuuo’s alleged plans to install a captured leader and labeling everyone who had wished for a more participatory process as a detractor or traitor.

The other side will consider itself a side of victors, which forged ahead amid many obstacles to nominate and install their chosen leader with due regard to all the processes required in spite o circumstances.

None has gauged the OTA community sentiment properly at this point,  and it appears most likely that an era has dawned when that sentiment will not matter anymore. It remains to be seen whether the biggest losers from everything that has transpired and would follow in the coming days and years will be the Chiefs’ Council working with an executive office that is becoming the new norm, or whether it would be the community.

The Ongongoro meeting at the start of February 2022 was an initial gauge. It was a tense meeting conducted initially with speakers using a stern and firm tone to denounce Ombara Phiket Kapukare’s robbing them the opportunity to nominate a Paramount Chief.    

It is unclear whether a review application in April 2022 and a dispute filed with the Minister of Urban and Rural Development on 4 March 2022 will end the tug-of-war in the OTA leadership, or usher in an error that cements a culture of stepping over those who hold views contrary to popular sentiment. It all remains to be seen.