SWAZI QUEEN DENIES SEX SCANDAL

The Swaziland queen at the centre of a sex scandal denies she did anything wrong.

Reports in the international media say Nothando Dube (also known as Inkosikati LaDube), the 12th wife of King Mswati III of Swaziland, had been found at a hotel having sex with Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Ndumiso Mamba.

Mamba was said to have been sent to jail and Dube placed under 24-hour guard at the queen mother’s palace at Ludzidzini to await the king’s return tomorrow (Wednesday 4 August 2010) from a trip to Taiwan.

But ‘a close friend’ of Dube says it’s all a pack of lies. The Times, South Africa, reports the friend saying Dube was ‘not happy’, and wanted to ‘dismiss the allegations as false. She is at home at her own palace, she is not under surveillance and at no point was she ever taken to the queen mother's palace,’ claimed the friend, speaking on condition of anonymity.

‘She told me that the reporter who had written the story didn't even call her for comment, but she remembers being sent an SMS in May or June last year by an anonymous person saying: “We know your shenanigans and we are going to expose you in South African Sunday papers”,’ the friend said.

I don’t know who this ‘close friend’ is, but in the parlance of anonymous sources so beloved of the world’s media, ‘close friend’ of a person in the news usually means the person herself.

The Times points out that her story ‘follows similar scandals involving Mswati’s queens. In 2004, his fifth and sixth wives, Putsoana Hwala and Delisa Magwaza, were embroiled in infidelity scandals, which led them to flee the king's palace that year.

‘Magwaza now lives in London and Hwala in Soweto.’

KING’S LOVE RIVAL INVESTIGATED

The cabinet minister love rival to King Mswati III of Swaziland is being investigated by the Swazi Parliament for alleged expenses irregularities.

Hardly had Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Ndumiso Mamba been released from the jail he had been banished to by King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, than questions were asked about international trips he had taken that were not budgeted for.

I’ll leave it to you to judge the timing of the allegations.

The Times of Swaziland, the only independent newspaper in the kingdom, reports on Mamba’s difficulty with fellow parliamentarians, but like the whole of the media in Swaziland it has not reported that Mamba was discovered last week in a hotel allegedly having sex with Nothando Dube (Inkosikati LaDube), King Mswati’s 12^th wife, while the king was on a trip to Taiwan.

Mamba is accused of spending E200,000 (about 27,000 US dollars) on international trips that had not been budgeted for.

In his defence Mamba said he didn’t know in advance that he was going to make the trips and on one time he had been representing King Mswati.

I think we can safely assume the king won’t be asking Mamba to do that again.

SWAZI KING'S LOVE RIVAL RELEASED

The love rival imprisoned on the instruction of King Mswati III of Swaziland has been released.

Swaziland Justice Minister Ndumiso Mamba was discovered allegedly having sex with one of the king’s wives, Nothando Dube (Inkosikati LaDube), and banished to jail.

The media and others in Swaziland were sworn to secrecy over the affair, but as soon as news leaked out, first in the South African press, and then globally, Mamba was released.

News is that a group of senior princes realised that adultery is not a crime (not even in Swaziland) and King Mswati had no right to imprison Mamba.

I assume the princes contacted King Mswati, who is on a trip to Taiwan, where yesterday he was given an honorary doctorate by Taipei Medical University for his ‘outstanding leadership’, and convinced him that now the international media were on his case he had no way of covering up his dictatorial action.

King Mswati is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, so might have assumed that his word was (quite literally) law.

The question is what happens now? Even though Mamba has not broken a law of adultery, King Mswati will not let him get away with sleeping with one of his wives.

It is reported that charges of ‘trespassing on another man’s home’ may be brought against Mamba, even though the couple were found at a hotel, not at one of the king’s many palaces. In Swazi cultural law women are considered to be the property of their men (husbands, fathers) so maybe in this case Dube is considered the ‘home’.

Lucky Lukhele, spokesperson for the Swaziland Solidarity Network, told the international media that, if the charges were proved, Mamba would get the death sentence and Dube would be banished.

That might be going a bit far, even for King Mswati, but I understand Amnesty International has been informed of the situation in case Mamba or Dube’s human rights are violated in the aftermath of the scandal.

We won’t have long to wait for the next dramatic move - King Mswati is due home to Swaziland tomorrow (Wednesday 4 August 2010).