I hope this letter finds you in good health sir. We are very hopeful that you will take the responsibility bestowed on you in Ghanzi very seriously and stir the ship that is BMD to greater heights. It is important that you do so and in the process we expect you to respect the letter and the spirit of the BMD constitution, its President and its principals. The BMD like any organisation has a hierarchy and in the National Executive Committee (NEC) the President of the movement is the embodiment not only of the hierarchy but of the movement as a whole. An attack on that embodiment is the direct attack on the movement. As members of the movement we are obliged to defend the movement from any attack within and outside the movement, hence this letter to you sir.
I read your letter to our President and secretary General of the UDC MK Ndaba Gaolathe in The Patriot on Sunday of 1st November 2015. Although the letter is purported to have been written by you and is signed by you, quirkily the style of writing resembles that of Advocate Sidney Pilane. Go se molato! Not only that, the manner it was leaked to the press on a Sunday reminds me of Advocate Pilane’s scathing letter on Khama that appeared in the Sunday Standard newspaper on a Sunday. There are so many striking similarities. Sir, your preface of the letter stating your reluctance to write the letter because it might “find its way into the public domain” sells you out as the very person who leaked the letter to the press. That is an old trick. You knew very well that you will leak the letter to the press hence you absolved yourself from the act well in time so that you can then turn around and accuse the president of doing so. I suspect that Advocate Pilane must have used his connection in the media to get a full page. There are two things that could have happened here; its either you bought that space or Pilane cajoled his friend Advocate Sadique Kebonang, the owner of The Patriot on Sunday. Advocate Kebonang is a BDP functionary who will accept with open hands anything that is geared towards admonishing the cooperation project. Sunday Standard could not be used this time around because of the opinion expressed by Spencer Mogapi on the matter. You should be weary Mr Mangole of a man who feeds you to the pigs. Pilane has used you on this one and he will continue to use you. You acknowledge in your letter that MK Ndaba indicated his reluctance to get involved in Pilane’s matter and akin to that expressed your admiration of Mk Ndaba’s position. Mr. Mangole as a cousin to Pilane we all expected you to take a neutral position on the matter because you are highly conflicted. You speak here on behalf of, and protect your kith and kin. Your letter is blaringly subjective and in defence of Pilane. Compounded by this matter, Pilane has been your financier having contributed significantly to your general election campaign and your secretary general campaign in the build up to the Ghanzi congress. You would have gained credibility if you had recused yourself from Pilane’s matters. However we all know that you would never have done so because all that happened is part of the grand plan. This is tantamount to selling the organisation with thirty pieces of silver. You are a damn sell-out. You have trampled on all forms of decency, sub-stepping the BMD constitution to deliver the people’s movement to a man who dines and drinks with the DIS director. Yes they dine and drink together as Isaac Kgosi consults him on his cases before court or before the DCEC. Questions are abound about their relationship. Tell me Mr Mangole, supposing Pilane becomes the president of BMD (God Forbid!) where will his allegiance lie when we take DIS and Isaac Kgosi to court when we assume power in 2019? This is a million dollar question. We at UDC have always believed that the security operatives including DIS had a hand in subversive activities including the death of innocent citizens, curtailing of people’s freedoms and the freedom of the press. Anybody who strikes a relationship with these institutions or its representatives is our enemy. Mr. Mangole please tell me, how do we trust Mr. Pilane with our movement and its secrets when on the other hand he deals with the Director of DIS? Just tell me. This is one of the reasons why we are not comfortable with Pilane being offered the membership of BMD.
You come across as a very dishonest person in the letter you wrote. In your quest to defend Pilane you circumvent the constitution, twist it and misrepresent facts to suit your narrow political interests and agenda. The BMD constitution is very clear on who should attend the NEC meetings. Other than the working committee, committees of youth, elders, women there is also the chairpersons and secretaries of the regions. Why is it that you don’t invite chairpersons and secretaries of regions to the NEC meetings? Failure to do so renders NEC meetings unconstitutional and its decisions null and void before we can even talk of the quorum. You know very well that because of this fact those meetings were not quorate. Seventeen (17) misguided quarks sitting in an illegitimate meeting cannot make such an overarching decision of admitting an unwanted Pilane into our organisation. It just cannot be! You purport in your letter that the admission or non admission of Pilane is such a small matter that doesn’t warrant a special congress. It does not only warrant a special congress it also warrants a motion of no confidence in you and your ilk. Your letter pokes our president and makes fun of him but honestly the joke is on you Mr. Mangole. You have declared a war that you will never win. You do not denigrate our president and get away with it.
I wish to address the issue of membership shopping that is playing itself out before your eyes but which you seem to deny. When Mr Pilane submitted a membership application to Gaborone North Branch and his application was declined, it was BMD that refused to grant him membership. When Pilane filed another application with Mochudi West Branch this was a 2nd application for BMD membership. When a BMD branch expels a member as an example, it can never be correct for that member to seek membership from another branch and be granted membership. It is not procedurally correct for a member who was denied membership by a branch to apply to another branch and be granted membership. Pilane knows this very well and he must stop applying intellectual sophistry. The procedure is simple. If Pilane was dissatisfied he should have appealed to the higher structure of the organisation instead of going shopping for membership at his home village of Mochudi where you Mangole are a member of parliament. Who are you guys trying to fool? The BMD NEC cannot appoint a task force to look into the matter of Pilane’s membership application at Gaborone North Branch if the matter of his application had been closed. What then would have been the role of the task team? Mr. Mangole your attempt to manipulate the constitution and the process on behalf of your cousin and financier is ridiculous. Indeed Pilane’s membership must be subjected not only to review but must be thoroughly investigated to establish if the constitution was adhered to and procedure followed. If you believe in transparency Mr. Mangole you will not reject these processes to establish Pilane’s BMD membership authenticity beyond doubt. You deliberately Mr. Mangole left out the fact that two (2) or more branches being Mogoditshane and Gabane wrote letters to your office objecting to Pilane’s application for membership. The constitution of the BMD is very clear that under such circumstances where there is an objection membership cannot be given until the objections from these branches have been addressed. Indeed as a result of this, Pilane’s membership application was supposed to be subjected to a vigorous review. In your haste to provide your cousin with membership you deliberately ignored these constitutional provisions. Instead you decided to insult, ridicule and disparage our president using words such as “the decisions of NEC do not require your presence and agreement…” and “we do not need you to have faith in us…”. You are not the gatekeeper of our movement; you are not the custodian of our constitution and decisions more than Ndaba is. Infact between the two of you, the majority of BMD members would rather trust Mk Ndaba’s judgements than yours. How can we trust you with our movement when you hand-picked a woman friend of yours to stand as a BMD candidate in a Mochudi council by-election that we lost dismally to BCP precisely because you flouted primary elections procedures? How can we trust you when you and Pilane caused a mess with our youth league elections in Mochudi creating factions within the youth movement? We will not allow you to repeat that within the mother body of the BMD. I now understand why BNF in Mochudi West found it difficult to accept you as their candidate in the past general elections. You are a divisive, sleek and twisted character.
Your cousin, Pilane, is a very dishonest character who just a few months back penned a letter showing disinterest in joining BMD at least in any foreseeable future. Just months down the line he is literally crying for BMD membership even at an expense of tearing the movement apart. How do you remotely trust such a character? He even denied that he was involved in any way in the campaigns of the youth league despite photo evidence glaringly pointing to the contrary. His vehicle, a white Nissan was used by one of the youth factions called “Calm Voice” during their campaigns even during the youth league elections in Mochudi. If Pilane is able to fund and support factions while outside the organisation, what more if he is inside? He is monied and it is alleged that he funded your faction going to NEC elections in Ghanzi and even funded your general election campaign. Mr. Mangole your hands are not clean, you resemble the biblical Judas Iscariot. Please Sir, don’t sell our movement. Have you ever wondered Mr. Mangole why Pilane seems to want the BMD membership at all cost? Why now? What is the purpose of this hurry to provide him with membership? Why did it have to take the death of Mk Motswaledi for Pilane to want to come back to the movement? These difficult questions are nagging me as I pen down this letter. It is unfair sir to ask you these questions because definitely you do not have the answers to them.
In conclusion sir, I want you to be aware that we will not sit back and allow you and your sort to insult and ridicule our president. We will protect him against your onslaught; we will take a bullet for Mk Ndaba. You touch him you touch us, you insult and ridicule him, you do that to all of us in the BMD. For all these deeds against our president, you will have us to deal with. Be warned!
*Seboletswe Diphiri
The writer is a public servant and has asked for a nom de plume. He is known to the Editor
