Mutjinde Katjiua, who is regarded as Paramount Chief by a faction of the Ovaherero, blames division of his tribe on the Namibian Government.
During an annual commemoration event in Toasis in the Aminuis Constituency of the Omaheke Region on Sunday, Katjiua said the government is misinterpreting the laws by recognising more than one traditional authority in a tribe, which according to him is the problem behind all this division among the Ovaherero community.
“The Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA) is the sole representative of all the Ovaherero people according to Namibian laws, but the government wants to divide people. You cannot have a traditional authority of the Ovaherero and also have royal houses representing different clans as traditional authorities while they all fall under one tribe of the Ovaherero people,” he said.
This according to Katjiua is a wrong interpretation or misusing of the Namibian laws, “because they want to make sure the Ovahereo people are divided”.
“We are going to work for all the Ovaherero people, as a Herero even if you are trying to put us down, the benefit of this tribe and that of your future generation is in the hands of the Ovaherero Traditional Authority,” he declared.
Another OTA faction on Saturday inaugurated academic Hoze Riruako as its Paramount Chief at Okahandja in the Otjozondjupa Region.
Katjiua further indicated that one of his key goals is to bring the youth and women forth to take up positions that are coming under the new constitution that was adopted during a senate meeting over the weekend.
“The future belongs to the youth, educate a woman to educate a community, we are tapping our shoulders that we are done with the constitution but that constitution has a lot of work for it to bring about change,” he noted.
According to the traditional leader, there are a lot of organisations and departments and it is everyone’s given responsibility to lead in any of these to make sure they get necessary skills and knowledge.
“The future is clear that if you’re a self-centred leader, you cannot be a leader of this tribe. This is in the future, I am not trying to spoil my leaders or followers. We need not only to eat, we need to work harder,” he emphasised.
Katjiua said his people should start focusing on important things like the economic emancipation of the Ovaherero people, and education.
“We are having cooperatives and farmers associations that we are members of, our way forward is thoroughly looking on how we can use these groups with those leading them to improve our tribe’s socio-economic aspects,” he said.
On the genocide committed against the Ovaherero and Nama people by erstwhile Germany, he said the authority has a huge responsibility and have solicited organisations and people all over the world to help them on fighting for the injustices committed in the early 20th century.
“This fighting is going to take maybe two years. Somebody was deployed, he was a convoy, committee member of a certain committee investigating something, what was the assignment of this committee and what was accomplished, we are going to look for all these explanations, we want to know if it is this government and the German government or individuals who want to steal our inheritance – all this will come to us,” Katjiua said in reference to the official genocide discussions.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency