KING’S NEIGHBOUR REFUSES TO GO

NKOYOYO – Government is making frantic efforts to persuade resistant Gilbert Mabila to move out of his farm, which shares very close boundaries with Nkoyoyo Palace.

For the past 25 years, the 88-year-old has successfully fought and resisted his evacuation from his 4.7 hectare title-deed farm in Nkoyoyo, outside Mbabane.
He has not changed his mind as he is still not interested in leaving his four-bedroom house, arguing that it was built on a farm detached from the Nkoyoyo Palace. Mabila’s home is like a landlocked country as it is wholly surrounded by the palace fencing; to an extent that he finds himself having no alternative route than to use the royal entrance.

One would assume that he is one of the members of the royal family as he has to pass through the main gate manned by the soldiers. He then goes through blocks of army offices and garages where royal family vehicles are parked. This is where he exits or enters his residence. His visitors have to be first screened by the army before they are allowed passage.
In an interview, Mabila, a former school head teacher and one-time Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Education, said he was not to blame for the situation as part of his land, which could have enabled him to build an exit point, was annexed.

He said he had lived side by side with the royal family for over 25 years and wondered why government, in particular Jabulile Mashwama, the Minister of Natural Resources and Energy, persuaded him to leave his home.
He disclosed that Mashwama and Majahenkhaba Dlamini, the Attorney General (AG), had written letters informing him to leave his home because government wanted to use the land for public purposes.
He said they referred him to the Acquisition of Property Act of 1961, which, he said, the minister and AG might have misquoted deliberately or misunderstood it. He said it was true that the Act mandated government to resettle people on land required for public projects such as schools, roads, hospitals and other infrastructure.

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