By Velaphi Mamba.

I would like to extend my deepest and sincerest condolences to Comrade Bacede Mabuza and his family on the passing of his mother on New Year’s eve. To lose a parent is a profound and irreplaceable loss, made all the more painful when one is unjustly separated from family by unjust imprisonment at a moment when presence, comfort, and dignity matter most. 

Without doubt, this gross injustice against Mabuza and his family is a direct responsibility of king Mswati and no other person – he must be held fully responsible. 

May her soul rest in power, and may the Mabuza family find strength and solace in this time of grief, even as we continue to demand justice and humanity for Bacede. I call on all emaSwati to descend upon the Mabuza family in their hundreds of thousands as she is laid to rest. 

We have a duty to amplify the calls for the release of Bacede and all political prisoners. In equal measure, we have a generational mission to ensure that the sovereignty of our people is fully restored in our country.

The 2005 Constitution of Eswatini is often presented as a progressive break from the past, a modern charter that restored legality after decades of rule by decree. In truth, it is a reincarnation of King Sobhuza II’s 1973 Decree, repackaged in constitutional language and used as a smokescreen to fool the international community. 

That decree is very much alive and it dismantled multiparty politics, concentrated power in the monarchy, and appropriated all the instruments of the state away from the people. The current constitutional order preserves that logic intact: it vests ultimate authority over land, minerals, water, and strategic national assets in the King, supposedly “in trust for the Swazi Nation.” 

This is the greatest nonsense of our times and I am always appalled whenever I think about how this nation has tolerated the status quo for so long a period.

This notion of royal trusteeship is one of the most abused and intellectually dishonest ideas in our public life. In theory, trusteeship implies stewardship, restraint, and accountability. A trustee does not own the trust property; they manage it solely for the benefit of the beneficiaries, guided by fiduciary duties and subject to oversight. 

In Eswatini, however, trusteeship has been inverted into something grotesque: a legal fiction used to justify the private accumulation of national wealth by one family, while the majority of emaSwati sink deeper into poverty. This is unacceptable and must be ended.

If the King were genuinely acting as the nation’s chief steward, the use of national wealth would be visibly redistributive. Land policy would prioritise food security and productive livelihoods. Mineral revenues would be transparently managed to fund health, education, industrialisation, and youth employment. Water resources would be governed to support both present needs and future generations. 

Instead, what we see is the opposite: a political economy organised around undue royal privilege, extraction and gross opulence. King Mswati III holds stakes – directly or indirectly – in all the major companies across key sectors of the entire economy. He earns royalties from land use, mineral extraction, and strategic industries, all justified under the claim that these assets are held “in trust” for the nation. Yet the material outcomes of this arrangement are unmistakable. While the state pleads poverty, social services deteriorate, hospitals run out of drugs, schools crumble, and unemployment reaches crisis levels. 

At the same time, the King has amassed colossal personal wealth: executive jets, sprawling palaces, luxury watches, and vast financial assets reportedly held offshore, including in London and other jurisdictions. This is not stewardship, it is appropriation. The moral obscenity of this situation cannot be overstated. 

Eswatini is one of the most unequal countries in the world. Large sections of the population depend on subsistence agriculture, food aid, or precarious informal work. To preside over such deprivation while accumulating billionaire-level wealth requires not only institutional impunity, but also a complete rupture between power and responsibility. A trustee who enriches himself while beneficiaries suffer would, in any serious legal system, be removed and prosecuted. In Eswatini, he is celebrated, shielded, and declared sacred. We say not anymore.

Defenders of the status quo often argue that the King’s wealth is indistinguishable from national wealth, that his prosperity symbolises national prestige and progress. 

This argument collapses under scrutiny. National wealth is collective, accountable, and directed towards public purpose. 

Personal wealth is private, discretionary, and hoarded. Jets and palaces do not educate children. Offshore accounts do not build clinics. 

Royal opulence does not translate into shared prosperity. The deeper problem, therefore, is not merely the behaviour of one individual, but the logic of trusteeship itself as currently constructed. 

By collapsing ownership, control, and accountability into the monarchy, the system guarantees abuse. There are no effective checks, no parliamentary oversight, no public audits, and no mechanisms through which emaSwati can enforce their interests as the supposed beneficiaries of the trust. Trusteeship without accountability is not trusteeship at all; it is absolutism by another name.

It is time to say this plainly: the trusteeship arrangement must be abolished. All national wealth- land revenues, mineral royalties, shares in strategic industries, and other public assets held by Mswati in trust for the nation – must be removed from royal control and placed under democratic management. A national sovereign wealth fund offers a clear and practical alternative.

Such a fund should receive all royalties and dividends currently flowing to the King. It must be governed transparently, audited independently, and supervised by Parliament and a genuinely representative people’s government. Its mandate should be explicitly redistributive and developmental, focused on long-term national priorities rather than royal and elite consumption.

This is not an attack on culture, tradition, or identity. It is a demand for justice, accountability, and rational governance. Cultures evolve; exploitation should not be sanctified as heritage. No nation can sustainably develop when its wealth is treated as the private estate of a ruling family.

Trustees are meant to act in the best interests of their beneficiaries. King Mswati has manifestly failed this test. As he gets richer, emaSwati get poorer. As his assets multiply, public institutions decay. 

This contradiction is no longer defensible, morally or politically.

The greatest nonsense of our times is not that Eswatini is poor; it is that we are expected to believe a billionaire king is acting “in trust” for a struggling nation. That illusion must end. 

The restoration of the sovereignty of emaSwati is urgent and inevitable. All of us must therefore be of singular mindset in seeking to achieve this noble goal. It is time.