During a developmental phase fraught with ill-fated indiscretion, Michael Kelebogile Mzwinila had secretly – and without any legal sanction, distributed a controlled chemical substance called Mandrax. In response to this development, the state made arrangements for the future Gaborone North MP to take up free, if involuntary long-term residence at one of its regimented-life hotels.
The law of political rivalry demands that an opponent should never leave a stone unthrown and so, when Mzwinila became a politician, his past indiscretion of spreading narcotic joy became ammunition that Lieutenant General Mompati Merafhe would, from his front-bench seat, pick up off the floor and lob across the floor straight at him. The two men had first met at what later became the Sir Seretse Khama Barracks in Mogoditshane where Merafhe was the founding commander and Mzwinila was one of the first Botswana Defence Force pilots. On retiring from the army in 1989, Merafhe joined politics as a specially-elected and later Mahalapye MP on the Botswana Democratic Party ticket. Mzwinila would himself become MP for Gaborone North on the Botswana National Front ticket.
Being on opposite sides of the house portended occasional and ritualistic clashing and during one such episode, Merafhe said that BDF fired Mzwinila because he “lacked discipline.”In one other respect, the two men were tangentially connected through a detail that will be of interest to historical trivia buffs. While at BDF, Mzwinila became the first Motswana to study at the prestigious Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, United States. Odirile, Merafhe’s first-born son who completed his high school education in Florida, would also study at the same university.
Then Major General Merafhe, who lived with his family in the barracks discerned an unsettling level of precocity in his teenage son – who was already hanging out with junior soldiers. Worried the son might not attain the sort of future that he desired for him, the father packed him off to Miami where he lived with a family friend while continuing his education. Decades later, Merafhe would proudly state that Odirile, who is now the CEO of Cash Bazaar Holdings, earned many many times over than he did as vice president.Once contributing to a parliamentary debate, Mzwinila suggested that Air Botswana (for which Odirile worked upon completing his studies) should introduce more local flight routes in order to be more profitable.
Indeed, the number of elaborately tricked-out Land Cruisers whose Mag wheels spin desert sand in the Kgalagadi District strongly suggest that a Gaborone-Tsabong route would be very profitable. If not, we can always blame Mzwinila who, by the way, served a stint as Airport Manager at what would become the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport many years and upgrades later.It is likely that when Mzwinila was born, “Kelebogile” was a gender neutral name but at the time that he was MP, baby boys were never given that name. Naturally, “Kelebogile” made him the butt of jokes with people who didn’t associate the name with masculinity.
Once when Mzwinila was spitting fire on the floor, a BDP frontbencher rocking back and forth in his leather chair (Minister of Lands and Housing, Jacob Nkate) sought to derail him by calling him “Kelebogile” numerous times. It was good-natured ribbing alright but one that not-so-subtly conveyed the message that “Boy, you have a girl’s name.”A pilot in the early 1980s – and one who was in the army for that matter, would most certainly have been one of Gaborone’s who’s who. However, it was through his political career that Mzwinila’s star shone even brighter and over greater radius. On being elected to parliament in 1999, he became the second Gaborone North MP after Maitshwarelo Dabutha – whose defection to the Botswana Congress Party ended his parliamentary career.
The writer’s first encounter with Mzwinila was in a small, cramped office along the Haile Selassie Road during the general-election campaign season. One part of the floor nearest to an electrical outlet was carpeted with a jumble of cellphone charger cables as eight (yes, eight) cellphones charged. Exuding chummy energy, he wore a permanent smile and began the answer to almost all questions with “Comrade.” A politically unknown quantity, Mzwinila was causing a stir in the BNF. Word on the street was that he was awash with cash and that he thought nothing of lavishing it on both the party and a retinue of economic hangers-on whose highly developed sense of smell had enabled them to pick up the sharp intoxicating scent of crisp currency notes from across town.
As members of his campaign team, Mzwinila rolled around town in a gleaming GP-registration vehicle. The “GP” stands for the Gauteng Province in South Africa and in a country that has volunteered to make itself South Africa’s cultural colony, that registration number alone would certainly have earned him lots of cool points. By one account, his campaign had a total of eight GP-registration vehicles.As a species of legislator, Mzwinila was various flavours of controversial and whenever the fancy took him, would force the house into unusually tricky metaphysical debates – like what is a jacket? Like the wrist watch and refrigerator and iPhone and digital camera and the Internet and ambulance and aviator glasses and super glue and microwave oven and instant coffee and Fona (fruit juice concentrate), the bomber jacket was originally developed for the military.
As a former army pilot, Mzwinila understandably had a liking for this clothing item and one day decided to wear it to parliament instead of the usual business suit jacket. A bored MP in the Government Bench rose on a point of order to question why Mzwinila, who was on the floor, was wearing a jacket that didn’t conform to the official dress code. He insisted that he was properly dressed and the Speaker, Ray Molomo, had to ask him to turn around in order that he could see all of the jacket. While Molomo ruled that the jacket fell short of the standard because “it doesn’t cover your buttocks”, he nonetheless let Mzwinila remain in the house and continue his debate.One matter that couldn’t be resolved with a simple 360-degrees turn, ended up at the Lobatse High Court.
Mzwinila never bit his tongue in parliament and wanted to ask parliamentary questions that transferred that forthrightness to the written word of the Question Paper. However, the standing orders are such that the Clerk of the National Assembly has the final say on this matter – which means that a question can be so defanged such that it arrives on the floor virtually harmless. Mzwinila felt that these standing orders were cramping his style and he challenged them before Justice Ian Kirby – now president of the Court of Appeal. Mzwinila vs The Attorney General of Botswana Case No Misca No 128 of 2003 is gaining international prominence in some western-style courts and in 2008, was cited in a judgement out of the Kenyan Supreme Court.If “antics” is the right word, Molomo also had to deal with those of another Tonota man but on the other side of the house – Pono Moatlhodi.
Then more popularly known as “PPP”, he returned to parliament last year after a 10-year hiatus and in terms of a cultural naming protocol, is rebranding himself as RaNkamo – father of Nkamo, the latter being his first-born child. It was during his first stint as Tonota MP, during Mzwinila’s time, that Moatlhodi cut his teeth in parliamentary stand-up comedy. Once in the middle of a debate, he happened to reveal, quite out of context, a personal, if overly embellished detail about his past: “E rile e sa ntse e le nna sente Motsamaisa Dipuisanyo tsa Palamente, e ne e re ngwanyana a nteba, ke ise ke bue sepe le ene, a bo a setse a re “Ee.”
He basically meant that when he was still young, he was so attractive that girls swooned at his sight and would accede to romantic overtures he had never even made. Normally patient, Molomo took some umbrage to this particular self-indulgence on company time and called Moatlhodi to order.“Honourable Member!” he said disapprovingly, an edge of irritation to his voice. “Honourable Member!”
On the whole, Mzwinila was next-level combative because when he didn’t fight power verbally and legally, he literally fought it physically. As Minister of Lands and Housing, Nkate gained infamy for tearing down squatter camps in the city’s periphery. It was during this period that the bulldozer came to be known as the “yellow monster.” On learning about a plan to unleash that monster on a squatter camp in Sebele Ward in Gaborone North, Mzwinila hightailed it to the scene and literally blocked the path of a bulldozer. The folly of the effort was readily apparent but he succeeded in making a point about the plight of the squatters. Before this incident and since, no MP has literally fought for the rights of his/her constituents.The writer had the great good fortune to observe Mzwinila in action, at close quarters, during another meeting at the Gaborone North Constituency Office near BBS Mall.
At the precise time that the writer was ushered into the MP’s own office, he was on the phone, shouting at someone on the other end, his use of “Madam” suggesting it was a woman. Based solely on what Mzwinila was saying, the Madam had been reported to the MP’s office for unfair labour practices and he was intervening on the workers’ behalf. Shortly thereafter, he had to place a call to another problematic capitalist.“Hello? This is Honourable Michael Mzwinila,” he said in a firm but polite tone of voice.At least from what Honourable Michael Mzwinila said thereafter, there was no resistance from this capitalist and the conversation was civil enough to forestall any need to shout public-interest threats into the receiver.
A brilliant political operator, Mzwinila was capable of tackling seemingly mundane issues on a granular level. In one instance, he displayed that skill when holding court on public transportation. Echoing the concern of his constituents, he used his floor time to go into quite elaborate detail about how the route for Broadhurst Route 5 taxi-buses (colloquially called “combis”) was misconceived and of great inconvenience to passengers. Other MPs would have been bored out of their minds but did a good enough of feigning interest.
In the 2004 elections, Mzwinila was defeated by BDP’s Keletso Rakhudu and having lost that very prominent bully pulpit, Mzwinila sort of faded into the sunset as a national public figure. “Sort of” because he remained active in politics, making another unsuccessful bid to return to parliament from his home village’s (Tonota) constituency. About use of the past tense: as with everybody else, 2020 was mean to Mzwinila and on December 29, it got meaner. While visiting Zambia, he contracted malaria, was hospitalised at the Lundazi District Hospital and passed away on January 5. At press time, plans were underway to repatriate his body back home.
In a press statement, BNF lauded the bravery of a man who soldiered on even after leaving the army.In line with a modern ritual, half the adjectives in the Oxford thesaurus will be used in futile attempt to describe and psycho-analyse a hugely complex man whom some of his friends called Mzwix. The reality though is that Mzwix’s character defied easy labels and his actions couldn’t always be connected with straight lines. Take the case of his mysterious disappearance and reappearance when the house was in recess.Nobody (not the party or constituency office, not the parliamentary party, not supposedly close friends and as it would later turn out, not even security agencies) knew anything about his whereabouts. In the language of his profession, he just fell off the radar. A false breakthrough came when a highly-placed source in law enforcement passed on information to Midweek Sun that Mzwinila had been detained in South Africa.
The result was a front-page that repeated that claim. Then the paper came out on Tuesday morning and a few hours after it did, a smiling Mzwinila sauntered into the newspaper’s offices. A few days later, his lawyers delivered a letter of demand and he ended up suing the paper for defamation. Were there dots to connect in that incident or was the whole thing mere happenstance? Michael Kelebogile Mzwinila. Please remember that name because the man who answered to it was highly skillful at living and will forever remain part of Botswana’s political history.
