Johannesburg -
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela wants her family to control Madiba’s Qunu home.
“The farm and house in Qunu shall be nominally handed over to the children born in a marriage between Mr Nelson Mandela and Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela,” wrote lawyer Mvuzo Notyesi to the executors of Mandela’s will.
“The children born in a marriage between Mr Nelson and Mrs Winnie Madikizela Mandela shall be the joint custodians of the property, which shall devolve among their generations in accordance with abaThemba custom.”
Madikizela-Mandela appears to be trying to lay claim to the Qunu house without being seen to contest Madiba’s will.
On Tuesday morning Advocate George Bizos SC, one of the estate’s executors, declined to comment, saying the executors had not yet met over the matter.
Madikizela-Mandela’s spokesman Thato Mmereki did not respond to attempts to contact him.
Madiba’s eldest grandchild, Mandla Mandela, did not want to be drawn into the issue.
“It has nothing to do with him,” said his spokesman Freddy Pilusa.
Notyesi wrote that Madikizela-Mandela had acquired the Qunu house in 1989 while Mandela was in prison.
They were married at the time.
“The aforesaid property belongs to the generation of Mr Nelson Mandela and Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela as their common and parental home.”
Madikizela-Mandela was left nothing in the will and the will reads the following regarding the Qunu property:
“I bequeath the Qunu property and the moveable assets of my estate in or on it at the time of my death, to the NRM Family Trust.
“It is my wish that the trustees of the NRM Family Trust administer the Qunu property for the benefit of the Mandela family and my third wife (Graça Machel) and her two children, Malengane Machel and Josina Machel.
“The Qunu property should be used by my family in perpetuity in order to preserve the unity of the Mandela family.”