RULE OF LAW SWAZI STYLE

Zwide Nxumalo has defied a court order to stop being chief of the Ezikhotheni area in the Shiselweni region of Swaziland because he was appointed to the post by King Mswati III.

Magistrates told him he couldn’t go ahead with a sibhimbi ceremony that officially introduces a new chief to his subjects because of a dispute about whether he had been correctly chosen as chief.

So he went with the ceremony anyway.

Now he is being accused by some of his subjects of contempt of court.

Nxumalo told the Swaziland High Court in a written affidavit to mind its own business. He was he says chosen by King Mswati (sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch) and that to him is the end of the matter.