The recent developments engulfing Kgosi Kgolo Kgafela that culminated in his incarceration have ignited an interesting debate on the institution of Bogosi.
Extra-judicial floggings and other peripheral issues, such as the alleged running away from the law, aside.
It is the chieftainship; its significance in contemporary Botswana that ought to be the core of public discourse. Are chiefs merely ceremonial figures or do they wield some real (not perceived) power? Where do they fall in the leadership hierarchy? How relevant are they in modern day Botswana? Are there concrete plans to develop the capacity of the institution to play any meaningful role? Why are many of them opting for political office over kgotla?
These and many more questions should be at the fore of the national debate against the backdrop of Kgafela’s fiasco. As we ponder over these issues we may be able to answer the million pula question: is Kgafela a recalcitrant or a rebel with a cause in his crusade to assert traditional leadership? Could this be an explosion of contradictions of political versus traditional power play that manifest into tendencies that threaten to tear the nation asunder?
This article argues without prescribing the modus operandi that in order to address the injustices of colonialism and or neocolonialism on various policies and legislations, a fresh debate culminating in the review of the constitution is inevitable.
Chieftainship is used as a case study, otherwise there are other equally compelling cases which could have been used, some of which are mentioned, albeit scantily.
Perhaps at this juncture, Dr. Kenneth Koma’s prognosis in pamphlet number 5, Chieftainship in Crisis is as relevant today as it was in 1975; a cue from his thesis would prove vital in the appreciation of this predicament, than the academic bile that is being currently exchanged in the newspaper columns when the nation yearns for guidance and leadership.
According to Dr. Koma before the colonial administration the chief derived his power and authority from the community, the interest of the chief and those of the community were almost identical, deviation by the chief could trigger a backlash, including replacement with the next of primogeniture or even assassination as with Motswasele in 1821. In other words the power and authority of the chiefs lay where the wishes and aspiration of the community intersected.
Dr. Koma postulates that the crisis started when chiefs were alienated from their people so that the source of their power and the basis of their authority was colonial administration that paid them and bestowed on them too much power over their people leading chiefs to become despotic while ceding more powers to the colonial administration, this marked the genesis of the crisis. The same is not true with the modern day chief who is not an embodiment of the interests of his community but rather political shepherds of the rulers.
After independence Dr. Koma said, the new administration, which he sometimes described as neo-colonialists, continued to weaken the powers of the chiefs reducing them to the equivalence of civil servants and making them vulnerable to politicians who were amassing more power at the expense of the Chiefs.
Dr. Koma posits that upon pressure from the chiefs, the African Advisory Council was formed in 1920 which did not necessarily change the powers vested in the High Commissioner to make laws by proclamations which left the chiefs dissatisfied, thus exerting more pressure leading to the creation of the Legislative Council in 1961, after which the chiefs insisted that laws made by the Legislative Council be given to the Advisory Council for discussion.
There was fear of the parallel law making authorities between Chiefs who derived their power and authority from tradition and custom and the National Assembly which derived its authority and power from election. The chiefs were still unprepared to accept a purely advisory role, triggering a motion by Bathoen II for the review of the “Lobatse constitution” resulting in the BDP leader addressing a joint meeting of the two houses deferring the issue indefinitely.
In case one wonders how the leader of the BDP got to play such an important role even before first elections, Richard Vengroff (Botswana Rural Development in the Shadow of Apartheid) elucidates and buttresses that point when he said the leadership in the legislative council, especially of Seretse Khama and Quett Masire, hoping to prevent nationalist feeling from congealing around the BPP, formed a competing organization- Bechuanaland Democratic Party (BDP) in 1962. This new moderate African party, supported by many Europeans, became available to participate in the Constitutional Review. Seretse Khama was groomed for the senior position of Government Secretary.
There is a school of thought that says BDP was given power at independence on a silver platter, the whole election exercise was stage-managed to disguise the otherwise well orchestrated and dexterously executed transfer of power from the colonialists to the neo-colonialist BDP. This to a greater extent is given credence by both Dr Koma and Vengroff among others; by first rendering chiefs impotent, the colonialists corrupted not only our chieftaincy but also our politics. As affirmation and appreciation of having gotten power as manna from heaven, more colonialists were given prominent positions in the independent Botswana in the form of ministers, members of parliament, permanent secretaries, chief executive officers of parastatal organizations etc and the colonialists were further rewarded by being given fertile land mainly freehold land almost for free in places like Gantsi, Tuli-Block, Gaborone, Francistown etc. and they in return ploughed back money into the BDP to insulate it against possible defeat. The support given to the BDP assumed many forms and shapes.
For instance DeBeers and or its subsidiaries among others ensured perpetual BDP reign through provision of free expert advice such as Schlemmer reports and injecting more money in the party.
Besides its psychological ware-fare, i.e. where Batswana were brainwashed and indoctrinated to gullibly despise the opposition and show benevolence to the rulers by among other tricks blurring the divide between government and ruling party. All these led to a monolithic self made elitist party cum government. As a result of colonialism and neocolonialism some people think chieftainship should be relegated to dustbins of history or be treated with less respect.
Dr Koma competently demonstrated how the power of the chief has evolved overtime before, during and post colonialism, missionaries then colonial administration and later our own kin took away what rightly belonged to the people; the epitome of values and culture as embodied in the chiefs. Money became a useful bait to lure chiefs to become political fodder for the ruling party; this has helped perpetuate BDP hegemony.
After coronation, Kgafela refused to be included in government payroll and spelt out the road map of his administration. In the process, he attracted the attention of the law and unbridled criticism for infraction on human rights from some sections of the nation particularly the academia. He is also reported to have given an interview on wide ranging issues which in his view impedes chiefs to serve their communities unencumbered.
There are laudable voices calling for the review of the constitution, Kgafela among them. This is one of the issues that beg for a national debate, after all it was deferred by Sir Seretse Khama and we should not allow Ian Khama to kill this important debate. The call for constitutional review is not only justified but also imperative to allow the nation to redefine its destiny and help restore the dignity of the chiefs among other things, dislodge the chiefs from the clutches of politicians.
What chiefs relentlessly sought some of them got using their status which then catapulted them to political office, where real power lies. Paradoxically the political pirates who stole away from chiefs to politics have abandoned the seemingly moribund institution that is for all intents and purposes now a caricature, the dinosaur of monumental proportion. This country can no longer hide under the façade that it is a shining example in Africa, because it no longer is.
A sincere introspection and candid audit of what went wrong (including with chieftaincy) will take the country to its rightful place in the League of Nations, constitutional talks will do exactly that. The tired argument that ‘if it isn’t broken why fix it’ is self-defeatist and can only be ascribed to the likes of Vice President Merafhe, it is no longer a question of breaking but rather obsolescence.
A sizeable number of dikgosi, past and present acquiesced in the death of chieftainship as they watched with silence befitting a corpse as the institution was mutilated at the political alter in exchange for personal short term gains with dire consequences on the institution that should otherwise underpin our democracy.
Kgafela represents a few (among chiefs) of the last Mohicans in an attempt to revitalize the role and dignity of the institution of chieftaincy. Kgafela is fighting a noble cause. This is not to say that he should not be tried for suspected transgressions – that is still sub-judice and the courts will give their verdict.
Beyond the courts it is a matter for the constitution to give appropriate immunity to the lords if the nation so wish. It is unfortunate that some chiefs are trapped and hamstrung by lust for money and superficial power at the expense of the greater power on matters that affect their communities where they could have a highly positive impact on all and sundry, including politicians in an apolitical way.
In conclusion, an extensive quotation from H.M. Drucker depicts the attitude of the BDP in relation to other stakeholders in the democratic dispensation of this country; “The Conservatives have long regarded the British state and their encircling society as their own.
They supply its leaders and rulers, and its institutional labyrinth is peopled by the party’s natural supporters. Liberals and Socialists and other alien breeds of rationalist radicals, descendants of Puritans, Levellers and Chartists, were always regarded as intruders into the ordered, calm world of the British State.”(Contrast this with the recent attack by His Excellency on the proponents of constitutional review) He further says: “The people can be consulted, and grievances ventilated, opinion presented, interests pressed…But out of this arena of support flow no consequences of policy in government that the Conservatives considers binding. The principles which govern the organization of the civil society and state are thought too important to be subject to electoral caprice.
The problem of mobilizing and winning support in the mass electorate is subordinated to the tasks of government, and despite occasional lapses, it has been this ever renewed perception of Conservative leaders that the political system is not one and indivisible, and that the tasks confronting them in government and in the political market must be kept separate… “
