State security monitors Okolo
Settlers facing eviction from Okolo in the Oshikoto Region say state security agents have been asking them questions related to their pending eviction.
It is reported that members of the Namibia Central Intelligence Service are keeping an eye on happenings at Okolo in the Onalusheshete district of Ondonga following Namibian Sun's report that more than 200 settlers at Okolo are facing eviction after two powerful northern personalities approached the Oshikoto Communal Land Board to privatise the land they claim to have been occupying for many years.
It is reported that state security agents visited the area to investigate claims that hundred settlers will be evicted once the Oshikoto Communal Land Board grants a leasehold to businessman Samuel Namwele and former Okaku constituency councillor Joseph Endjala, who applied for the leasehold on the 2 593-hectare piece of land last year. France Casita (77), who claims to have been living at Okolo since 1991, said state security agents from Omuthiya visited Okolo on two occasions last month and this month.
“They have been coming here asking us questions related to how we came here and how many people have settled here. These two officials first came here last month and they returned at the beginning of this month,” Casita said.
Casita, who lives at Okolo with his wife, children and livestock, said he was shocked to learn that they would be chased from a place they have called home for almost three decades.
“I am aware that we are being chased away from this land. I have been living here with my family almost all our lives and now we are being chased away. I am old and I have nowhere else to go and look for the land for me and my family,” he said.
The Central Intelligence Service unit at Omuthiya refused to comment.
Upon investigation, Namibian Sun was informed that Okolo was established as a farm in 1985 by the late businessman Mathew Elago, but he never settled there. He died in 2008.
In 2014 Onalusheshete senior headman Eino Shondili Amutenya divided the land into two parts, with Endjala claiming 1 235 hectares while Namwele claims the other 1 358 hectares. Ondonga Traditional Authority issued the two with grazing permits on 30 September 2014. On 3 July last year a newspaper advertisement was placed, listing the names of the leasehold applicants for the land in question.
After seeing the advertisement, the settlers wrote to the communal land board, objecting the granting of the leasehold to the applicants.
On 12 October last year, the chairperson of the Oshikoto Communal Land Board, Sointu Angula-Mupopiwa, advised the settlers to approach the Ondonga Traditional Authority to clarify the ownership issue and provide the board with relevant documents before 30 November.
The complainants requested the board to give them until yesterday to clarify the matter.
Angula-Mupopiwa could not be reached for comments, but Namibian Sun understands that the communal land board has not discussed the matter yet.
The settlers are proposing that the farm be turned into a village, while Namwele and Endjala want them to vacate the land.
When contacted for comment, Namwele said that he and Endjala purchased the farm from the late Elago in 2006 and they only found seven settlers there at the time.
They said the numbers have been increasing since then and the settlers started vandalising infrastructure at the farm.
ILENI NANDJATO
It is reported that state security agents visited the area to investigate claims that hundred settlers will be evicted once the Oshikoto Communal Land Board grants a leasehold to businessman Samuel Namwele and former Okaku constituency councillor Joseph Endjala, who applied for the leasehold on the 2 593-hectare piece of land last year. France Casita (77), who claims to have been living at Okolo since 1991, said state security agents from Omuthiya visited Okolo on two occasions last month and this month.
“They have been coming here asking us questions related to how we came here and how many people have settled here. These two officials first came here last month and they returned at the beginning of this month,” Casita said.
Casita, who lives at Okolo with his wife, children and livestock, said he was shocked to learn that they would be chased from a place they have called home for almost three decades.
“I am aware that we are being chased away from this land. I have been living here with my family almost all our lives and now we are being chased away. I am old and I have nowhere else to go and look for the land for me and my family,” he said.
The Central Intelligence Service unit at Omuthiya refused to comment.
Upon investigation, Namibian Sun was informed that Okolo was established as a farm in 1985 by the late businessman Mathew Elago, but he never settled there. He died in 2008.
In 2014 Onalusheshete senior headman Eino Shondili Amutenya divided the land into two parts, with Endjala claiming 1 235 hectares while Namwele claims the other 1 358 hectares. Ondonga Traditional Authority issued the two with grazing permits on 30 September 2014. On 3 July last year a newspaper advertisement was placed, listing the names of the leasehold applicants for the land in question.
After seeing the advertisement, the settlers wrote to the communal land board, objecting the granting of the leasehold to the applicants.
On 12 October last year, the chairperson of the Oshikoto Communal Land Board, Sointu Angula-Mupopiwa, advised the settlers to approach the Ondonga Traditional Authority to clarify the ownership issue and provide the board with relevant documents before 30 November.
The complainants requested the board to give them until yesterday to clarify the matter.
Angula-Mupopiwa could not be reached for comments, but Namibian Sun understands that the communal land board has not discussed the matter yet.
The settlers are proposing that the farm be turned into a village, while Namwele and Endjala want them to vacate the land.
When contacted for comment, Namwele said that he and Endjala purchased the farm from the late Elago in 2006 and they only found seven settlers there at the time.
They said the numbers have been increasing since then and the settlers started vandalising infrastructure at the farm.
ILENI NANDJATO
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