There is no doubt in our mind now that President Mokgweetsi Masisi is going for a clean-cut.
He wants to get done with the previous regime as quickly as possible.
He is in a hurry to assert himself and his hegemony.
And for a person who has for long existed under a heavy cloud of doubt and skepticism of his suitability, nobody can blame the man ÔÇô at least not fairly.
His biggest show of force and prudence has been the sacking of the country’s spy chief, Isaac Kgosi.
Kgosi’s sacking has been such a mammoth public event.
It has even overshadowed the cabinet reshuffle.
The sacking caught everybody, not the least the spy chief himself by surprise.
In the end it felt like the spy chief’s much touted ability to hear and know everything under the sun was an exaggeration, a big lie.
The operation to sack him was clinically and surgically undertaken, leaving no broken bones on its trail.
Like all of us the spy chief was in the dark about the storm building around him and when the winds arrived on shore he was swept under ÔÇô and how embarrassing in the end it must have felt for him.
The operation made the man look so below average.
It exposed the falsehoods of a reputation he had amassed over time.
It was all fake ÔÇô a totally undeserved reputation.
It is possible that even if an invasion by a foreign force against this country was afoot, it could easily catch us all, including him napping ÔÇô or at sea, to use an English idiom.
“Secret intelligence is not a science,” a great British journalist, Hugo Young once wrote.
Events and circumstances leading to the sacking of Isaac Kgosi have proved just how correct Young was.
For the last ten years Kgosi bestrode the Botswana ‘s landscape.
He was law unto himself.
He was the embodiment of all that was rotten about Ian Khama’s regime.
Kgosi was the symbol of that regime’s impunity as well as its rejection of all the known tenets of public accountability.
He spurned decency and defied all etiquette.
His uncouth and unchecked use of force destroyed many careers and drove many businesses to early deaths.
In the end, Kgosi’s demise was an act of his own.
Power had gone to his head. And it got him drunk.
When he told a Public Accounts Committee of Parliament that he was not accountable to anyone, not even to the State President some of us began to worry about his mental stability and even started to question his state of mind.
That in the end proved to be his perilous moment.
His behavior at the PAC was proof enough that he had failed to read the new script, that with the arrival of Masisi there was a new a sheriff in town.
The precision of the operation to sack him was breathtaking.
Given Kgosi’s oversized reputation as a crack intelligence officer, even for the operation planners it must in the end have felt somewhat like karma.
For the public, Kgosi’s sacking became a platform, theater and forum of relief ÔÇô all in one.
There was little to no discernible sympathy for him.
Admittedly his time as spy chief has been a lightning rod of controversy.
But even then, no man in our recent history has attracted and inspired so much universal antipathy.
His sacking acted like a public safety valve as in the same token it exposed the long simmering public angst against the Khama regime.
But it also had a much bigger symbolism about it ÔÇô it gave us the outsiders a peek into the future.
It signalled Masisi’s firm arrival.
It will take immense context to get a comprehensive understanding that Masisi’s entrenchment has been nothing less than astonishing.
His entrenchment has been sudden and full of drama.
It is stuff that makes blockbuster movies.
Even his BDP is gob-smacked. They cannot believe what they see playing out right before their very eyes.
The opposition, never good at reading the public mood to start with, now seems totally disorientated ÔÇô expecting the worst, but hoping for the best.
They are confronting proof that Masisi will not be a political lightweight they had imagined he would be.
They no longer say he will be the shortest serving president, having made such numerous premonitions many times before.
For the President himself, sacking the spy chief has proven a master stroke, surgically implemented with breathtaking outcomes.
That operation alone has given Masisi time to breath.
Before then there were clear attempts to undermine him by creating not just confusion, but multiple centres of power too.
That phase is now behind us. Everything is now falling into line.
There is only one centre of power.
Batswana have always had a soft spot for an underdog. For them Masisi has always had the attributes of an underdog
And they are mesmerized by the rise of this underdog.
Masisi’s biggest strength is an ability to always shock his opponents and awe his detractors.
Every successful leader needs an element of surprise.
Amid all success, a successful leader also needs humility.
Even with such a clear upper hand, Masisi is, at least for now not gloating and is showing no signs of triumphalism.
Here is a man who was not supposed to be in power ÔÇô a king that was never supposed to be.
His arrival into power has been an easy shoo-in. He’s taken to it like a fish into water.
A man who only a few days before ascending still attracted doubts if at all it would really happen, now seems wholly in charge; fully ensconced.
Only a few weeks ago, cabinet was divided on their loyalty to him.
There were some among ministers who were still consumed by afterburns of what they perceived as a junior hand rising to become their Lord.
Those feelings are now gone.
A new sheriff has arrived. Those who doubt it risk being caught on the wrong side of the law.
And a few body bags are already in display to prove that.
