By the time you read this the President – Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi would be a few hours from reading his State of the Nation Address speech or even have read it already.
The President gives his third state of the nation address at a time when there is a lot of expectations from his office by Batswana.
These expectations are as a result of the many promises that President Masisi made during the 2019 political campaigns. It is the nature of politicians to make promises to almost everyone during elections campaign periods like it happened in 2019.
The President gives his third state of the nation address at a time when the nation of Botswana is facing what could be classified as the hardest economic hit in the last two years. Even the 2008/09 global recession was not as bad as the hit made by the COVID 19 pandemic.
The President is also giving his third state of the nation address at time when there seems to be a great division within our society. While the recent economic hardship has contributed to this division, the polarization seems to be coming from as far as ten plus years ago. The great division has been brewing for quite some time now and there seems to be no deliberate efforts to close the gap.
As President Masisi gives his third state of the nation address, he should not shy away from highlighting this great division in his speech. It would take the President’s address and admission on the great divide to unify Batswana and get them to work towards a common goal of rebuilding Botswana. It would take the President address on the great division to bring back politics of substance that has since been replaced with bootlicking.
This might be a personal opinion/observation but indications are that our nation is getting ripped apart each passing day. There is a clear division amongst Batswana and it would take ONLY the state President to stop or at bare minimum start the process of stopping it. Just this past week we read about the government’s decision relating to donations at public schools. There is a believe in political circles that the decision is targeted at the leader of opposition in the country – Duma Boko. Boko has of late been donating books to public schools across the country – a gesture that brought us an opportunity to be united as a nation. Given that our public schools have of late been dishing our poor academic results, the Boko books donations project is noble in the sense that it has many advantages to it.
Firstly, it could result in well-read young citizens. Secondly it would help the government financially in the sense that she would then now need to focus on other schools which have not received the books or better still focus on provision of core prescribed text books and give room to people like Boko to donate extra curriculum books. Thirdly, and most probably controversial and yet vital is that it had given the President Masisi an opportunity to jointly work on something with his main political opponent. Any cooperation between the two men – even if its minimal is vital for a greatly divided nation like ours.
A good relation between political leaders like Boko and Masisi would go in a long way to unify the nation and get it to work as a team towards a common goal of creating wealth for the future generations. We have seen the power of such in countries like Kenya where longtime rivals – Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga have projects that they jointly do together which has got their supporters to also share a cup of tea. Back at home, our president does not even need to be physically present at Boko’s book donations, he just needs to make a statement in support of the good gesture and an encouragement to other leaders in the society to follow suit in initiatives that could result in inclusiveness and most importantly unity.
The office of the President cannot be heard preaching unity and inclusiveness on one hand and on the other seen coming up with policies that encourage polarization. Whether we want to deny it, the division within our nation is massively there and if we do not address now it can only end in tears for many of us. The silence of many well-known opinion leaders should be one of the earliest signals that our national agenda has taken a wrong path.
The objective opinion leaders silence is because sometimes, people like them give up on public affairs when they feel the nation has ended up on a road to nowhere. Their silence is not because the key socio-economic issues they been talking about over the years are no more. Their silence is due to the fact that in a country like ours, sometimes its better to shut-up to avoid putting oneself into loggerhead with those who think one is infringing on their authority. When a democracy reaches a point where some of its people chose silence over voicing out then the leaders of the moment must be worried.
This is why President Masisi needs to ensure that his administration does not only talk about but also act on inclusiveness and unity. We cannot close the existing economic gap between the rich and the poor if we are to target those who tend to have an alternative opinion or view on any given public affairs matter.
We are at a point of economic development where most Batswana are keen to see some viable measures to address the issue of Joblessness, Landlessness and Moneylessness being put in place. If we are to do it right, we are certainly going to need alternative views and better still diverse solutions put on the table. Our stubbornly high-income inequality is a problem that only continues to grow and contributes significantly to the growing gulf between rich and poor. It has the potential to cost President Masisi a great deal of public support.
That is why it is important that any opportunity given, the President should use it to encourage the citizens to pull towards the same direction. The #Bottomline is that as the head of the government in a country mired in many deep and seemingly intractable problems, President Masisi would benefit more from a strong economic performance and such could start with a mere unifying SONA.
