JOHANNESBURG: Nelson Mandela’s grandson yesterday denounced efforts to remove him as chief of the anti-apartheid icon’s clan following a bitter family feud, as the former president started a second month in hospital.
Mandla Mandela rejected attempts by Thembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo to strip him of his Madiba chieftaincy as the latest in a line of “delusional” statements from the monarch.
“He doesn’t have the authority to do that,” Mandla’s spokesman Freddy Pilusa said. Mandla, 39, earlier said processes to appoint and remove chiefs were lengthy. “King Dalindyebo has a habit of making delusional announcements,” Mandla said in a statement.
“You don’t just wake up and call a meeting of followers and make such a decision,” he added. Nelson Mandela handpicked Mandla as his successor to head the Madiba clan — one of many in the Thembu nation — in the Eastern Cape province’s village of Mvezo in 2007.
But a bitter family argument over the 94-year-old Nobel peace laureate’s burial place has put Mandla in the firing line.
Fifteen family members won a court order to rebury the remains of Mandela’s three deceased children, after Mandla moved them two years ago without consulting relatives.
The family accused Mandla of exhuming the graves to ensure that Mandela is buried on land owned by his grandson, who they said wanted to cash in on tourists visiting the gravesite.
Mandela has said in the past he wants to be buried with his family. Last Thursday Mandla lashed out against his brothers, aunts and other relatives in a televised news conference. AFP
