Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Gladys Kokorwe, speaks for many when she says the nation should do more to ensure that youth are given the opportunity to realise their full potential.
Minister Kokorwe was speaking at an event to mark International Youth Day.
Ms Kokorwe’s words could not have come at a more opportune time.
It would, however, have been more enlightening had the minister gone the extra mile in her speech to outline what the youth of this country are in turn doing, not just for themselves but their country as we are implored to make opportunities for them.
As we understand it, Botswana government has created what is aptly called the Botswana National Youth Council (BNYC).
Among other things, the mandate of this youth council is to provide an enabling environment to help achieve exactly what Minister Kokorwe is calling for; the realisation of the full potential of the youth.
Events of the past few weeks will however betray, if not flat out dismiss, this noble objective.
Over the last few weeks, the BNYC has reduced itself to a circus.
In a clearly stage managed announcement, reminiscent of Stalinist show trials, the BNYC, a few weeks ago fired the council’s chief executive, Ndulamo Morima.
Morima’s expulsion was performed in the full glare of the Botswana Television cameras, a television station that has of late grown exceedingly competent in covering issues that it perceives as discounting the very existence of opposition politics in Botswana.
While this newspaper has not always been a friend of the BNYC, we want to point out that we have nothing against this organisation. In fact, we also have nothing against the many young people who have run the organisation over the years.
It is a fact of life that we have not known them so intimately as to be able have formed any balanced opinions about them.
Our disdain from BNYC stems from the singular fact that the organisation has since its inception been a breeding ground – a nursery if you want – for the ruling party.
The young Turks who are for the most time running BNYC are there in a very cunning way seconded from the ruling party.
They always see themselves more as future BDP Members of Parliament and less as young people serving the interests of their fellow youth across the spectrum.
Naturally, this appalling behaviour has had the effect of repelling many other thousands of young Batswana who have no passion for the divisive and partisan nature of party politics from participating in the activities of BNYC.
Other than that, the grandstanding by the BNYC board was determined to publicly humiliate Morima, a brilliant and very patriotic young Motswana. It is not hard to see that the way the BNYC board handled his sacking was also designed and couched specifically to play to the gallery which is made up of their political principals in the BDP.
There are fewer sights more ridiculous than a board of directors firing its chief executive through the use of a national television station. Not only is it illegal and un-procedural, it is also immoral and inhuman.
Yet some of the thugs sitting on the BNYC board of directors saw nothing wrong with that.
Under the auspices of Morima, BNYC had been organising political debates across the country as part of the ongoing preparations for the general election, a very noble and commendable exercise given general complaints about voter apathy among the youth, including by the BDP High Priests.
But then, because Morima is not one of them at the BDP, they seem to think that it follows that he belongs to any one of the opposition political parties.
It is a tragedy for our country when people can no longer be expected to be neutral or politically non-aligned; when we are forced to refine the art of licking the boots of politicians just so that we are sure we will keep our jobs.
While we draw some solace from the fact that the thugs in control of BNYC have since gone back on their attack on Morima, we remain dismayed by the shocking gullibility and lack of ethics shown by Botswana Television.
It has become very difficult to divorce BTV from such organisations like BNYC who are de facto proxies of the BDP.
The thugs who control the BNYC board sacked Morima because they believed that for as long as Morima was perceived to be pro-opposition, then whatever illegal action they took against him will be condoned at the government enclave.
We applaud Ms Kokorwe for her principled stance.
Her action to force the BNYC Board to reinstate Morima is an acknowledgement that there are many Batswana who remain outside of party politics.
We cannot be boxed into simple black and white.
