Dalindyebo’s ex-wife: ‘Take his crown’

Convicted abaThembu king Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo’s ex-wife Noluntu wants him dethroned but not thrown into jail

She wants him dethroned, but she doesn’t want him to go to jail.

Queen Noluntu Dalindyebo has opened up for the first time about what she describes as a “complicated” on-off relationship with the controversial abaThembu king, Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo.

The king’s 52-year-old second wife, who he divorced in 2002, was one of 16 abaThembu royal family members who wrote to President Jacob Zuma in 2012 asking for his certificate of recognition to be withdrawn due to his “unroyal behaviour”, which included smoking dagga in public.

The royal family’s embarrassment became more acute when his conviction of arson, kidnapping, defeating the ends of justice and assault was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein in October.

The queen’s move to side with his detractors infuriated Dalindyebo so much that, during a funeral two years ago, he lambasted her, calling her “a bitch” and chasing her out of the congregation in full view of other mourners.

She told City Press: “Some people say I am fighting the king just because I appear on the list that is calling for his dethroning. I have always been neutral in the fights he had with his family.

“Even those who want him dethroned are his family. I sit in during their meetings because they invite me; they like me. I am there because I think they are trying to fix the problems facing the Thembu,” she added.

The queen was present during the lowest point in the king’s life.

“When he was arrested for his cases, I was the one who bailed him out, because he’s my husband. His family and friends were nowhere to be found. I could not leave him in jail. I paid R20 000 for senior counsel to represent him. Even now, I would not like to see him behind bars, even though we have our differences,” she said.

But Noluntu and Dalindyebo’s relationship has not always been this “complicated”.

It developed from a strong bond they had as children when their families enjoyed good ties in Sithebe village near Mthatha, where they grew up.

“We started loving each other from a young age. We were teenage sweethearts. Our families knew each other well. My father had good relations with the king’s father,” she said.

In 1995, Noluntu married Dalindyebo after he divorced his first wife, Nocollege Buyiswa Majiki, now an Eastern Cape judge and mother of Crown Prince Azenathi Dalindyebo, who the king recently named as his successor if he went to prison.

“He paid 15 cattle for me as lobola. Of those, 12 were on foot and the rest was paid in money. We were married in a civil union in community of property and in church after his [first] divorce was finalised. It was a white wedding – beautiful and romantic,” she said.

But having grown up in a rural area and knowing royal protocol as she did, Noluntu always knew she would not be the wife to bear an heir to the king, as she did not come from a royal family. To pave the way for a royal wife, they agreed to a divorce that was finalised in 2002, she explained.

“I was prepared to groom the royal wife and make her feel comfortable. Her lobola was to be paid by the abaThembu nation, as she belonged to the entire nation. But this never materialised. Even today, abaThembu still don’t have an heir,” she said.

“I think he took the whole thing as a joke instead of a fundamental custom.”

Instead, she said, her husband took other commoner wives.

At a meeting at the Bumbane Great Place in October, the king said the country’s “royal families” expected him to “beg” to marry one of their daughters, which he was not prepared to do.

The couple soon started to have “differences”.

She moved out of the Bumbane Great Place in 2002 against the king’s wishes and into a modest three-bedroom home she had built about 20km from Mthatha.

“I wanted to have my own place, where I could have peace of mind. I am just finishing it [the house], doing tiling and other things at the moment,” she said.

But moving out of the Great Place came years after she had assumed abaThembu’s highest office – queen regent – in which she acted on behalf of her then husband, who had been studying at the time.

In 1997, Noluntu, a qualified biology and agriculture teacher, resigned from Milton Mbekela Senior Secondary School in Qunu to serve as queen regent after being recommended by a number of the nation’s elders, including then president Nelson Mandela.

Getting the nod from a global icon was “humbling”.

“I think Tata had confidence in me because I was educated and possessed leadership qualities. I think the nation was very stable under my stewardship.

“This is partly because I was a regent and acting on behalf of my husband. I did not want to disappoint him or the people who had entrusted me with that responsibility,” she said.

During her five-year reign, from 1997, she built the king’s six-rondavel palace, the Bumbane Great Place.

“When I handed the reins back to my husband, he wrote a letter to me, saying I had managed to run the kingdom smoothly and had developed a good relationship with the chiefs. He appreciated my contribution as queen regent at the time,” she said.

Besides being queen regent, Noluntu was the founding president of Imbumba Yamakhosikazi Akomkhulu, an organisation of the wives of kings and chiefs that addresses issues facing rural women.

She is also a member of the Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders and a provincial executive member of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of SA in the Eastern Cape. She is also a businesswoman and involved in a company that supplies tyres to the taxi industry.

Although she was reluctant to talk about her husband’s rule in the years after she handed back the reins, she admitted that there was instability in the nation, particularly with the king now facing the prospect of 12 years in jail.

She said the royal family was in tatters and at least one community project had been derailed.

“Today, things are upside down in the kingdom. There is no peace and stability – in the family and the entire nation. There is no dignity, no respect and no one is taking responsibility. It is just constant fighting.”

What the king says

Nkosi Mfundo Mtirara, King Dalindyebo’s spokesperson, said Queen Noluntu’s view was a case of sour grapes because the king had divorced her.

“When she was married to the king, she was never against anything he was doing. What is she concerned about today?” he asked.

He said the couple divorced because she did not want to accept any of his other wives.

“She contested the divorce. She did not want the king to marry again. That’s why he divorced her. She never accepted the wives the king has now,” he said.

On her paying bail for the king, Mtirara said: “That money belonged to the king and the nation. She was a regent. She had to pay the bail for the king because the money was not hers to begin with.”

Mtirara said that if Noluntu did not want to see Dalindyebo go to prison, she would not have associated herself with people who wanted to dethrone the king and send him to jail.

“The royal family she associates with are ambassadors of the campaign to see the king sent to prison and dethroned. She is contradicting herself,” he said.

Mtirara said that if Noluntu believed there was a crisis in the nation, she had also contributed to it during her time as regent.

“We don’t see any crisis. We see progress,” said Mtirara.