ARTICLE 1: THE COURTS HAVE SPOKEN – NOW OVAMBANDERU MUST SPEAK
There comes a moment in the life of a community when litigation can no longer provide the answer to a problem that is fundamentally about relationships, history and belonging. I believe the Ovambanderu have reached that moment.
The recent Supreme Court ruling concerning the attempt to establish another traditional authority for the same community should be read as more than another victory or defeat in a long legal contest. Together with earlier Ovambanderu judgments, it points towards an increasingly clear legal reality: the Traditional Authorities Act was not designed to facilitate competing statutory authorities over the same traditional community.
This does not mean that every historical grievance has disappeared, nor that every question of customary legitimacy has been answered. It does mean, however, that continuing to pursue parallel recognition may consume more years, resources and relationships without bringing the Ovambanderu closer together.
Since the passing of Chief Munjuku II Nguvauva, our community has experienced painful divisions. Different constituencies have associated themselves with different leaders and structures. These include groupings connected to Aletta Nguvauva, Tjingaete Boas, Katutura Tjiramba and Hoveka, alongside the recognised Ovambanderu Traditional Authority. Each grouping has its history, convictions and supporters.
The temptation after a court judgment is to ask: Who won?
I suggest that the more important question is: What did Ovambanderu win?
If one Omumbanderu defeats another in court but brothers remain separated, families cannot sit together and young people inherit old hostilities, then our legal victory may become a social defeat.
The courts have a constitutional responsibility to interpret legislation and customary-law questions brought before them. Government has a responsibility to administer the Traditional Authorities Act. But neither judges nor ministers can reconcile our families. That work belongs to us.
We should therefore use this moment to change direction. Instead of asking how another Ovambanderu grouping can obtain separate recognition, we should ask how all our people can find meaningful space within one united community.
Unity does not require everybody to agree about history. It does not require anyone to abandon dignity or pretend that past injuries never occurred. Reconciliation begins precisely because disagreements exist.
The objective should be simple but courageous: one Ovambanderu community, one recognised traditional authority, with sufficient dignity and institutional space for the different houses, leaders, constituencies, women, youth and professionals who make up our people.
The next important Ovambanderu gathering should therefore not be organised to declare winners and losers. It should be a gathering to begin listening.
Let the recognised Traditional Authority sit with those who have stood outside it. Let the various leadership groupings speak. Let elders, churches, women and young people participate. Let grievances be recorded rather than dismissed.
The Supreme Court can close a legal door. We must decide whether that closed door becomes another reason for resentment or an open- ing towards reconciliation.
Our ancestors left us a community. Our responsibility is not to leave our children factions.
The courts have spoken. It is now time for Ovambanderu to speak to one another. This opinion is written in the author’s personal capacity as a contribution to dialogue, unity and reconciliation among the Ovambanderu.
ARTICLE 2: WE MUST STOP ASKING WHO WON
For many years, Ovambanderu leadership disputes have been discussed in the language of victory and defeat. A judgment is delivered and immediately we ask which leader won, which faction lost and what legal avenue remains.
Perhaps this way of thinking has itself become part of our problem. The Ovambanderu are one people with a shared history, language, culture, ancestry and future. When one section celebrates the defeat of another section, we should therefore ask whether the community as a whole has really gained anything. The litigation that followed the death of Chief Munjuku II Nguvauva exposed deep differences over succession, customary law, the Ovambanderu Constitution and traditional leadership. Those disagreements were real and should not be trivialised. People acted according to convictions they genuinely held.
But nearly two decades later, we should have the courage to assess the cost.
How much money has been spent on litigation and parallel structures? How many relationships have deteriorated? How many cultural occasions have become associated with one side or another? How many young Ovambanderu have grown up knowing the names of factions before understanding the history that binds them together?
The recent Supreme Court ruling provides an opportunity to end this cycle.
The ruling should not become a weapon with which one group humiliates another. If it is used that way, we will simply move the conflict from the courtroom back into the community.
Instead, it should encourage all of us to recognise a practical reality: there is little value in repeatedly trying to create competing statutory destinations for people who remain Ovambanderu.
This includes our brothers and sisters associated with Aletta Nguvauva, Tjingaete Boas, Katutura Tjiramba, Hoveka and the recognised Ovambanderu Traditional Authority. Whatever our legal or historical differences, these are not foreign communities. They are our own people.
A reconciliation process must therefore reject the idea of surrender. Nobody should be called to unity merely to be told: You lost, now submit.
That is not reconciliation. It is absorption.
True unity would acknowledge that different constituencies exist and would deliberately create room for them within a common Ovambanderu institutional home, consistent with the law and our customary traditions.
We can have one recognised authority without demanding one opinion. We can respect different royal and family histories without
creating different peoples.
We can disagree about yesterday while agreeing to build tomorrow. Most importantly, our leadership conversation must become bigger than chieftaincy. Our children need education. Our farmers need support. Our young entrepreneurs need opportunities. Our language and historical knowledge need preservation. Our families need access to land and economic development. Imagine what could happen if the intellectual, financial and organisational energy spent fighting one another were directed towards those priorities.
The greatest Ovambanderu victory will not be recorded under the name of one litigant.
It will come when an Omumbanderu can attend a cultural event without first asking which faction organised it; when our children know their history without inheriting our enemies; and when our leaders can sit together despite disagreements.
The question before us is there- fore no longer: Who won?
The question is: When will Ovambanderu win?
This opinion is written in the author’s personal capacity as a contribution to dialogue, unity and reconciliation among the Ovambanderu.
ARTICLE 3: UNITY DOES NOT REQUIRE SURRENDER
Calls for unity often fail because people hear the word “unity” and assume that they are being asked to surrender their history, leadership or dignity. If Ovambanderu reconciliation is to succeed, that fear must be addressed from the beginning. Unity cannot mean that one group arrives at the table as the victor and everybody else arrives as the defeated.
The different Ovambanderu constituencies did not emerge without reasons. There are historical disagreements, questions of succession, interpretations of customary law, personal wounds and experiences of exclusion. Some of these matters have been litigated for years.
We cannot simply declare those experiences irrelevant.
At the same time, we cannot allow them to become a permanent inheritance.
– To be continued
