The former Chief Executive Officer of De Beers Botswana, Sheila Khama, has three categories under which she classifies a group of as many Botswana and South African presidents: “brilliant economists”, “hopeless politicians” and “dunderheads.”
To learn whom those presidents are and where they fall under those categories, you will have to visit her Twitter page and look up what she posted to it at 1016 a.m. last Thursday: “Two SADC’s best brains that also found their way into the upper echelons of power were former President Mbeki & Mogae. Brilliant economists but also hopeless politicians who handed their countries to dunderheads. Both countries ended in a disaster. Hard to reconcile their acts.”
The word “dunderhead” means a stupid person.
Thabo Mbeki was South Africa’s president from June 1999 to September 2008 when a palace coup cut short his presidency. Thereafter, there followed a quite interesting constitutional drama. Cabinet chose Dr. Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, who was the Minister of Communications, to be the constitutional and official head of state in an interim capacity for 14 hours. Thereafter, Kgalema Motlanthe took over as the head caretaker administration until the 2009 national election. Under the presidency of Jacob Zuma, the African National Congress won the election and Zuma became president. In that regard, Mbeki, who holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in economics and development from the University of Sussex, handed over the country to Zuma. The latter’s presidency had so many circus elements that he was ultimately forced to step down himself and briefly served an interrupted custodial sentence for some of his post-office misdeeds.
Festus Mogae was Botswana’s president from April 1998 to April 2008 when his constitutional mandate for presidential office expired. Mogae was replaced by his vice president and former Botswana Defence Force commander, Lieutenant General Ian Khama. Mogae holds a bachelor’s degree in politics, philosophy and economics from University College, Oxford and like Mbeki, a master’s degree in economics from the University of Sussex.
While Sheila Khama’s tweet doesn’t say who the dunderheads are, she provides as much detail as to compromise the identity of the people she didn’t want to mention by name: Khama and Zuma.
In a one-line zinger Gen. Khama gave as good as he got when Sunday Standard reached out to him for comment on what Sheila Khama had said about him: “It is interesting that someone who does not like the Khamas retained our name after she was divorced for purposes of achieving prosperity.”
Sheila Khama was married to Sekgoma Khama, who is the second born of Tshekedi Khama, the senior Bangwato royal who served as regent for Seretse Khama, Gen. Khama’s father. Tshekedi was the younger brother to Seretse Khama’s grandfather, Kgosi Sekgoma II, who was Bangwato kgosikgolo (supreme traditional leader) between 1923 and 1925. What all this means that there was a period of time when Sheila Khama and Gen. Khama were matrimonially related. The latter became De Beers CEO and would inadvertently be part of a grand plan to parachute Ian Khama from Sir Seretse barracks to the State House.
In one of De Beers’ internal documents, a copy of which has been passed to the Sunday Standard, De Beers states that the late Debswana Managing Director Nchindo “is generally credited with being the kingmaker.”
Sheila Khama, the author of the document states that in 1996 she was requested by Nchindo to proof read a document detailing a strategy to stabilize the party by doing away with factions that threatened to divide it.”
“In essence, the strategy took the form of a recommendation to the party (de facto cabinet) to facilitate the departure of former head of state (Sir Ketumile Masire) by introducing an attractive retirement package. The strategy further acknowledged that in his stead the current leader (Festus Mogae) would be installed as is provided in the Constitution and that for the succession planning the then head of the army (Lt Gen Ian Khama) be requested to take early retirement and then brought into the Cabinet as Vice President.”
The document further states: “As it happens, all this has come to pass proving his intimate involvement in BDP politics.”
Interestingly, the spat between erstwhile cousins happens a fortnight after Gen. Khama made his most vicious attack yet on his successor, President Mokgweetsi Masisi, on a South African radio station.
During a telephone interview on a Radio 702 show called Breakfast with Bongani Bingwa, Khama detailed a slew of misdeeds on Masisi’s part. The latter prompted the host, Bongani Bingwa, to ask Khama: “What happened between you and Masisi? He was your guy, wasn’t he?”
The response was as follows: “You know, it’s unbelievable. It’s something that people have asked me so many times and I have asked myself so many times why I did not see this satanic character in a man who was my Vice President, who I appointed.”
The word “satanic” would have jumped out at most listeners but for some reason, Bingwa chose not to interrogate Khama on his choice of that word. In elaborating the point about Masisi’s “satanic” character, Khama referred to “a cabinet revolt” that happened during Masisi’s tenure as vice president – and his own as president.
“A number of my ministers came to me and said ‘get rid of this man: he is bad news, he is irresponsible, he is immature and very divisive.’ I ignored them at the time and I regret it today. I made a very foolish mistake,” said Khama, adding that as a result of that mistake, “the country is suffering as a result.”
Ironically, Khama has himself been described in similar terms by Umbrella for Democratic Change president, Duma Boko, who compared the former president to a “demon” during a floor debate in parliament
“I repeat what I have said about your president, our president that he is like a demon propitiated only by human sacrifice and suffering. He has brought nothing but huge disaster upon our country. As he staggers into his retirement, he will forever be haunted by the guttural cries of the many people whose lives he has wrecked, and the silent tears of the workers of this country whose livelihoods he has brought into rack and ruin,” Boko said.
Of late, these sort of exchanges between leaders are becoming par for the course and in one respect, indicates erosion of simple decorum in public life. Once during his administration, Mogae mis-stepped and used offensive language (“ke ta a le kabolola ditshoka”) at a kgotla meeting in Mogoditshane. Within a certain (notably cross-generational) context, the Setswana (which literally means “I will remove wax from your ears” but is substantively a crude threat through which a speaker expresses intention to get even with the listener) is considered to be extremely rude. Elderly people attended Mogae’s meeting in Mogoditshane. Public outrage erupted immediately thereafter and there is no public record of Mogae ever repeating such language at another public forum.
Khama made a lot of ill-advised public statements during his presidency but the casually flung insult was never his idiom. That changed with his successor, Masisi, whose foot is perpetually in his mouth and unlike Mogae, shows no inclination to desist.
Speaking in Serowe last year, Masisi used rough-edged language about then Leader of the Opposition and Maun West MP, Dumelang Saleshando, having learnt bad manners from his father, Gilson Saleshando. The latter served as Selebi Phikwe MP between 1994 and 1999. Masisi said in Setswana: “Yo go ka bong gotwe moeteledipele wa kganetso yo, rre yo o se nang botho le maitseo yo (inaudible) yoo o kileng a re o tshuba palamente, a e tlhasetse, yo o mahoko a a sisimosang mmele, mme ha o tsaya di-hansard tsa bogologolo, yo a mo tsetseng o ne a bua mahoko a a tshwanang le one a.”
In Setswana culture, the word “tsetseng” (caused the birth of) is deeply offensive because it is ordinarily used for animals. The polite word would is “tshotseng.”
In parliament, use of insulting language has reached epidemic levels and a ruling party MP has suggested that live broadcasts of parliamentary debates should be discontinued precisely for that reason.
