Durban - Abathembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo in the Eastern Cape had no power to remove the chieftaincy from Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela, IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi said on Monday.
Buthelezi was reacting to Dalindyebo’s threat that he would remove the younger Mandela from his position as chief because he had “embarrassed the AbaThembu nation” following the spat over his family’s graves.
“When I was installed as the (Buthelezi clan) chief in the 1950s, the Department of Native Affairs installed and removed a chief.
Legislation now has allocated this right to the provinces,” he said.
Buthelezi said he doubted that the province would remove Mandela as chief because of his heritage.
However, he described the graves spat as “disgraceful and shameful”. Buthelezi said Mandela’s eldest daughter, Makaziwe, had every right to give her opinion on the Mandela family’s affairs. She has been a leading figure in the fight to have the Mandela bodies returned from Mvezo to Qunu after Mandla illegally exhumed them in 2011.
The Mercury