Friday, June 20, 2025

Dikgosi MIA in business leadership, protection of subjects

In seeking the favour of Kgosi Letsholathebe I upon their very first meeting in 1852, Charles John Andersson presented the Batawana Regent with beads, knives, tobacco, snuff, steel chains, rings, blue calico, red woolen caps, and trinkets of various kinds.

“Without deigning even a look of satisfaction, Letsholathebe silently distributed the goods among the principal of his men who were grouped around him, reserving, apparently, nothing to himself. This being done, he looked anxiously round, from which I inferred that some ungratified desire was still on his heart,” writes Andersson in Lake Ngami, a travelogue about his first trip to Southern Africa.

Wasting no time, Letsholathebe asked Andersson if he had “some powder and lead”, which he might barter for ivory. The answer was in the affirmative but Andersson added that he had just enough for himself and was prohibited by the British government at the Cape from disposing of either arms or ammunition to natives.

Writes Andersson: “At this declaration his countenance fell, and I saw clearly that he was very much annoyed. But I was prepared for his displeasure; and, by opportunely placing in his hand a double-barreled pistol, which I had previously been informed he coveted excessively, and which I begged him to accept as a memento of my visit, his visage soon beamed with delight and satisfaction, and we became excellent friends.”

There is a myth that precolonial African societies didn’t have standing armies. Where he didn’t need western military technology, Letsholathebe had an army of literally standing men ready to fight. Andersson writes of Batawana men: “One and all were armed with a shield (oblong in form, and made of a single fold of ox-hide), and a bundle of assegais of various descriptions, each provided with several barbs. What with these formidable weapons and their martial bearing, the aspect of these savages was imposing and war-like.”

Decades later when Letsholathebe had died, a relative of his, Kgosi Khama III of Bangwato, embraced western commerce, becoming a director in a company called Garrett, Smith & Co. and opening an account at the Standard Bank branch in Mahikeng.

That is just two dikgosi from as many cultures but their actions are emblematic of what traditional leadership has always been about across cultures: ensuring the economic security of subjects as well as protecting their life and limb. With some powder and lead, Letsholathebe would certainly have been able to repel attackers – and initiate attack against enemies himself. Through Garrett, Smith & Co. (the copy of its original share certificate was auctioned off online three years ago) Khama wanted to ensure the economic security of his subjects. That is what traditional leadership (bogosi) has always been about and absent such services to the community, there is none to realistically speak about.

The session of Ntlo ya Dikgosi (House of Traditional Leaders) just ended. During this session, as in previous ones, economic security of subjects as well as protection of life and limb were not front and centre of deliberations. Where these elements have not been deprioritized, they have been outsourced to another power centre.

As the upper house, members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi debate a variety of issues but there is never substantive focus on the primary elements that define bogosi. During this past session, members asked a parade of ministers questions about bad roads, departmental staffing, physical planning, delayed construction projects, office accommodation and a whole host of “is-the-minister-aware” questions with no meaningful orientation towards economic security and protection of life and limb. When the question paper was posted to the Facebook pages of some media houses, some commentators even asked whether dikgosi are now duplicating the role of MPs.

The problematic issues were raised in the context of officialising concern about gaps that the government needs to fill – in the past dikgosi would fill those gaps themselves. Dikgosi’s total dependence on politicians to solve problems means that they have outsourced their power to the latter. The counter-argument will be that dikgosi lost their power beginning in the 1930s when Resident Commissioner Sir Charles Rey stripped away such power. The dissolution of Garrett, Smith & Co. by the colonial government can also be cited as an example of dikgosi’s business leadership being sabotaged in order to whittle away their power. However, if dikgosi were ever helpless to provide business leadership during colonial era, that is certainly not the case today. As a matter of fact, Kgosi Letsholathebe II, played no small role in the establishment of one of Botswana’s most coveted tourism assets – Moremi Game Reserve.

If there was effort to reorient bogosi to its core being, members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi and indeed other dikgosi who are not members of this house, would belong to business associations like Business Botswana.

Dikgosi, who still have a lot of power, have also not agitated hard and long enough to reinstitute community policing in order to protect their subjects from criminals. They have yet to develop lobbying mechanisms to force political parties to include issues that matters most to them on their platforms. It is universally accepted that community policing worked best when dikgosi were in charge of it and that the Botswana Police Service experiment with this model has failed dismally. We have more than adequate evidence that the community policing models that two dikgosi have experimented have potential to not just work but work wonders.

In 1998, then Bakwena Regent, Kgosikwena Sebele put together an all-male vigilante outfit which was only symbolically called mophato because it wasn’t made up of members who had formally graduated from a customary tribal age-regiment. While it helped reduce night-time crime by more than 50 percent, Sebele’s mophato was also accused of violating the rights of some. At a point where he intervened, then Molepolole MP, Sebele’s long-time nemesis and minister in charge of security agencies, Daniel Kwelagobe, was concerned with what was wrong with the mophato but had no plans about how its operations could be re-calibrated. He promptly stopped its night patrols. About the same fate befell more rigorous mophato vigilantism that was cobbled together by Bakgatla’s Kgosi Kgafela II. This mophato virtually eliminated lawlessness in Kgatleng District schools. Again, it was a politician, then Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Lebonaamang Mokalake, who stopped the mophato.

Sebele and Kgafela were using crude methods to do what dikgosi have done for centuries: protect the life and limb of their subjects. However, politicians whose own preferred methods of policing were failing thought it best to frustrate than complement such crime-fighting effort. Dikgosi have not pushed back hard enough to be given an opportunity to protect their communities and when they get opportunity to (as when they meet at Ntlo ya Dikgosi) they ask questions about bad roads and when they will get a pay raise.

The whittling away of the power of dikgosi has also been attended by a rebranding that is harmless on the face of it but is actually doing a lot of harm to the institution. The colonial government told dikgosi that they were “cultural advisors” when the reality is that at the precise moment that they were being told so, they were themselves telling the administration that they didn’t know enough about their cultures. The result was that Rey commissioned Isaac Schapera to undertake research that produced Tswana Law and Custom. There was an understanding that such would continue to serve the role of cultural advisors in the post-independence era. However, one hardly ever hears of Ntlo ya Dikgosi advising the upper house on any cultural matter. The home-grown government wants dikgosi to believe that they are a “symbol of unity” when some of the most prominent among them are knee-deep in divisive partisan politics.

In failing to ensure economic security of their subjects as well as protect their life and limb, dikgosi are themselves killing bogosi. Ironically, if they provided business leadership in their communities, by now they would be thriving local and regional economies that would make them less dependent on the government and more powerful. Likewise, protecting the life and limb of their subjects would increase their relevance, importance and power.

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