Sex scandal rocks King Mswati’s royal house

Swaziland’s King Mswati has been betrayed by his childhood friend, Justice minister Ndumiso Mamba, who was caught sleeping with one of his young wives, Nothando Dube.

Southern African newspapers and online sources say the minister and queen were arrested last week.

The Independent Online reported that the Swazi minister, the right-hand-man of King Mswati III, resigned after a dissident group said he had an affair with the absolute monarch’s wife.

And Afrik-News said for many months, the queen would dress in an army uniform whenever the king was away and walk straight to the gate, and no one bothered to ask where this “soldier” was going.

A car would be there to pick the “officer” up and whisk her to the hotel, the Royal Villas, 10km west of Lozitha Palace.

“There is a story that has gone far... The story touches on the minister of Justice,” Prime Minister Banarbas Sibusiso Dlamini told a news briefing. “Mamba opted to resign as both Senator and minister... to allow the matter to be considered by appropriate authorities.”

King Mswati — who was on a two-week official visit to Taiwan when the story broke — is often criticised by rights groups as a dictator who runs the country of a million people as a personal fiefdom.

Sandwiched between South Africa and Mozambique, Swaziland won independence from Britain in 1968 but has been without a constitution since 1973. Political parties are banned. The king appoints the government.

Sources said Mamba was initially detained at a police station, outside Manzini, questioned and then moved to Big Bend Prison on the orders of the King, who also instructed the matter be kept secret and that the minister be kept in jail until his return from the 10-day State visit.

A source said the Queen Mother had on Friday dispatched a team to the minister’s own king in his village to lay charges of “trespassing into another man’s home”.

Swazi media were warned against working with South African media on the story. They fear that their lines are bugged.

Dube, known as LaDube, is not the first Mswati wife to wander. In 2004 two of Mswati’s wives — Delisa Magwaza (LaMagwaza) and Putsoana Hwala (LaHwala) — fled as news of infidelity spread across Africa’s last absolute monarchy.

LaMagwaza, who now lives in London, fled to Cape Town as news of her steamy affair with a Soweto lover, Lizo Shabangu, hit the headlines. Shabangu took the story of their romance to The Sunday Times after LaMagwaza ended the affair.

LaHwala fled to Alexandra township in Johannesburg, where she lived with her family. She is believed to be in Soweto.

In Swaziland, where opposition is banned, people speak in hushed tones about scandals of the royals.

The latest has been kept under wraps all week. Nobody wants to talk on record. Bheki Dlamini, the CEO in Mswati’s office, said: “I‘m in Taiwan. I’m not aware of the arrest. Please contact the police.”

Police commissioner Isaac Magagula insisted the minister had not been arrested. “I deal with crime here,” he said.

Suitable accommodation

The queen is being held under 24-hour surveillance at the Queen Mother’s royal palace at Ludzidzini in Mbabane while waiting for the king to return.

New wives are kept with the king’s mother at Ludzidzini while suitable accommodation is sought for them and while they are inducted into royal life. Truant wives are also banished there.

The arrest is set to rattle the South African royal family of King Goodwill Zwelithini. The Zulu king is married to one of Mswati’s sisters and to one of her nieces, Zola Mafu.

Mswati is also close to President Jacob Zuma, who paid lobola for one of the Swazi royal’s cousins, but never married her.

LaDube first caught the roving eye of the king when she was a 16-year-old finalist in the Miss Teen Swaziland beauty pageant in 2004.

She married him on June 11 the following year after he spotted her at the annual uMhlanga (Reed Dance) ceremony on August 30. LaDube is a year younger than Mswati’s first child, Princess Sikhanyiso.