The King of the Zulu nation wants total control of the Ingonyama Trust, which controls millions of hectares of tribal land across KwaZulu-Natal.

As a result, King Misuzulu KaZwelithini has appointed retired Judge Isaac Madondo and Advocate Thembeka Ngcukaitobi to lead the process to change the legislation that will see the devolving of the powers to appoint the Ingonyama Trust board from the Minister of Land Affairs and Rural Development and given to him.

Currently, the King appoints a portion of board members while the rest are appointed by the incumbent minister of the department.

The legislation change will also move the oversight role from the National Assembly in Cape Town to the KwaZulu-Natal legislature in Pietermaritzburg.

The King made this intention known on Thursday while he was opening the provincial legislature.

“I am now proposing a further amendment which will require parliament to approve. The end results is that board members will have to be appointed by the King. This move will ensure that Amakhosi (Traditional leaders) exercise direct control and oversight of the land,” he said.

The King said he has tasked his traditional Prime Minister, Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi, to lead the process to lobby political parties in the National Assembly to support and pass the proposed amendments.

The Zulu King also used the occasion to renew his call to rename the province from KwaZulu-Natal to KwaZulu.

He said the claim that Vasco Da Gama discovered the province and named it Natal does not hold water, as there were already people fully occupying it. The king first made the call last month at the commemoration of the battle of Isandlwana in Nquthu.

“This move is long overdue as we seek to restore our history and our identity and our dignity. When Vasco Da Gama arrived in Durban (eThekwini in Zulu) in 1497 and decided to come up with the name Natal in this part of the world, which was already known as KwaZulu-Natal.

“It was already KwaZulu, yet they claim Vasco Da Gama discovered it. You know, the West has this tendency of using fancy words like discover… How do you discover something when there are people already living there? … You know, you don’t discover something that has already been discovered,” the King said.