When a five-kilometre-long parade of floats was going around the refurbished National Stadium in Gaborone on September 30, spectators at the Molepolole Stadium had to make do with the minimalist spectacle of an off-programme entertainer dressed in Botswana colours. In a spur-of-the-moment rush of patriot zeal, this man volunteered to cycle around the track with a bicycle that had a child-seat trailer. Perched on the trailer was a little boy who was also dressed in an ostentatious blue, black and white attire. When President Ian Khama and Miss Botswana 2016 cut a huge birthday cake to thunderous applause from the packed National Stadium, two members of the Independence Day organising committee were distributing oranges to the few people who had turned up. As the Botswana Defence Force fighter jets roared over the National Stadium, the only objects that were airborne at the Molepolole Stadium at that precise time were houseflies. Where members of the disciplined forces marched around the National Stadium, brandishing weapons of war, spectators at the Molepolole Stadium had to settle for boy scouts holding sticks of play. The point: as was to be expected, the so-called BOT50 was a truly amazing spectacle only where the most money had been spent – Gaborone.
In terms of population size, Molepolole is the biggest village in Botswana and in anticipation of a huge turnout, Btvdespatched a crew to cover the Independence Day celebrations at the village stadium and intermittently relay live broadcast pictures. The same was done with Francistown and Lobatse. In as far as Molepolole went, the result was absolute disaster. At 10 in the morning, no more than 200 people were sitting in the covered stand while the rest of the stands were completely empty. In his speech, Bakwena’s supreme traditional leader, Kgosi Kgari III, who read a message from a colonial police officer who worked in Molepolole and is now back home in the United Kingdom, complained about the poor attendance. At this point, the Btv camera was focused on the speakers but it is unlikely this picture was shown because the background showed the completely empty stands. Supposing it was shown, the cameraman would have had to be creative about the background.
Stragglers trickled in as the day wore on and around noon, the covered stand was almost full. Then Btv felt adequate confidence to turn the cameras on the one stand with people. What must have been a senior cameraman was seen to guide his junior on how to line up a shot with a crowded section of the stand. Around this time, the emcee revealed that those caught on camera were at that moment, appearing live on Btv. Indeed soon thereafter, some people took phone calls from acquaintances telling them that they had just seen them on Btv. To whet appetite for later, the MC made another announcement about a free music concert coming up in the evening that was to be headlined by Astley Gops and Alfredo Mos.
So what went wrong in Molepolole? The first thing that did was over-concentration (in terms of resources) on Gaborone. Ahead of Independence Day, it was clear that a lot of money was being spent on Gaborone than on other places – even major villages like Molepolole. Even a child watching on Btv the September 29 grand spectacle at the National Stadium would have concluded that Gaborone was where the most golden jubilee fun was and depending on where that child was, would have tried at all costs to be there the following day. The result was that some of the people who could otherwise have celebrated the golden jubilee in their home villages, decided to go to the National Stadium instead.
As big a factor in the case of Molepolole was party politics. For the first time since independence in 1966, Molepolole is in the hands of the opposition and the keynote speaker (Kgosikwena Sebele) was a member of the royal house with strong opposition links. During the Goodhope-Mabule bye-election last year, Sebele ÔÇô who is a highly skilled orator ÔÇô campaigned for the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change, urging a mostly Rolong audience to vote for their Kgosi in the same way that Bangwato did with theirs ÔÇô President Khama who started his political career as Serowe North MP. To his credit, Sebele did not use the opportunity to score points for his party but gave a speech that the Botswana Democratic Party would have liked on any objective basis. The vote of thanks was given by Molepolole North MP, Mohammad Khan, who trounced the only high-ranking Botswana Democratic Party official who attended the celebrations – Gaotlhaetse Matlhabaphiri ÔÇô in the 2014 general election. While he innocuously advertised his opposition pedigree, Khan also steered clear of partisan politics. Momentarily going off-script, the first-term MP also got to offer a one-minute lesson on the proper way to execute the call-and-response routine for the national motto: when the speaker shouts “Pula!” (rain), the crowd is supposed to respond with “A e ne!” (let it rain) and vice versa. That doesn’t happen all the time because some clueless people (especially at Gaborone International Convention Centre events) respond to “Pula!” with “Pula!”
Another batch of village officials (ward headmen) didn’t show up because they were unhappy with the choice of venue. Historically, Independence Day celebrations have always been held at the main kgotla but on learning that this year’s would be at the stadium and failing to force a change of heart, some headmen decided to boycott the stadium event. Tied to this would have been the decision to allocate each kgotla money to buy its own Independence Day goodies. This means that people who would otherwise have celebrated at the stadium went to their respective dikgotla. Ultimately, whatever happened at the Molepolole Stadium that was not supposed to have happened was not viewed as adequate reason to take down half of BOT50’s “united and proud” signs in the village.
In as far as the grand spectacle goes, Molepolole couldn’t help but rely on local volunteer showmen, local boy scouts and local houseflies because a third of the money allocated for the golden jubilee celebrations went towards expenses for the national roving torch event. The official torch welcoming ceremony at the main kgotla drew a huge crowd that some estimate to be equal to one that turned up for the funeral of Kgosi Kgari II in 1963. It is this Kgari that the only senior secondary school in the village is named after.
Attendance did improve in the afternoon when two local football teams, Masitaoka and Green Birds faced off against each other. More people turned out for the music concert in the evening and when fireworks lit up the night sky in a village which is only partially electrified at midnight, yet more people arrived. The concert went on until early hours of the morning when a sporadic drizzle caused the organisers to stop it fearing that the hired musical equipment might get ruined.
