Your Majesty Kgosi Kgafela, I would like to make note to you that you seem to forget that you are a citizen of Botswana by birth and origin first and a Paramount chief of Bakgatla second. Since you have inherited the highest seat of the Bakgatla-Ba-Ga Kgafela, you have also vehemently become too big for your boots, or rather your seat.
You have this mindset that because of your chieftainship of the Bakgatla, you are above the law. Certain laws and regulations are and can be set by you as chief with the help of your diKgosana and Bakgatla tribal elders and then implemented to your people for your people only in Kgatleng.
You have, on several occasions, been heard uttering disrespectful words to the 1st citizen of this country, Mr President. You have belittled some Ministers and have even “banned” them from ever setting foot in your “land”.
What bewilders me is that the President is, as in local vernacular, referred to as Tautona, meaning the head of all Batswana and is representative of every Motswana, including all Chiefs in international arenas.
Therefore every geographical piece of land that is within the map of Botswana, he is heading as president, so even the tribal land of the Bakgatla that you as Chief is heading, falls under the Presidential jurisdiction because its part of Botswana.
This means that by virtue of his position and status, the president has all the free will to trod every piece of land he so wishes to visit within Botswana. He does not even need or have to ask for permission to visit any area within the country and his people. Its by mere virtue of respect for other leaders like yourself and Batswana at large, and for the sake of proper preparations that people are told in advance.
But you as Chief has inflicted a negative psychology on your subjects that what you utter, they have to agree with and follow. You are misleading your regiments by player hating the same institution that they depend on for their livelihood and their children which is the Government. You, in your own capacity, cannot build schools, roads, hospitals, provide utilities and other basic necessities for your Bakgatla subjects.
The Bakgatla, including yourself as their Chief, are just a subset like all other tribes that make up a nation called Batswana. We are all led by our president, be who it may be at any point in time. The Bakgatla tribal land is not an island country like Lesotho in South Africa. There, even Jacob Zuma, needs a passport and thus permission to enter Lesotho because its a nation with its own laws and regulations that no one can challenge.
But you’re Majesty, reality check!! The Bakgatla tribal land is way far from being an independent state like Lesotho.
The President and others who you say need your permission to come to your land actually pass on the A1 to Serowe through your land, unless or otherwise you are suggesting they should rather fly above (literally).
Kgosi Kgolo, don’t take me wrong, I do respect you as the paramount Chief of the Bakgatla Ba Ga Kgafela; you are actually the first and only young Chief that has put aside his career and put full attention with intent to your position and your people, for that I give you the thumbs-up.
You have given the institution of Bogosi a meaning for individual subjects in different tribes in Botswana. You have invested a lot of time learning and referring to your elders and advisors about the ways of your people, their norms, values and culture. You have even put many of those values back in practice. Nowadays young men entering into full manhood find it respective and tantamount that they indulge in the Bogwera initiation, which has been practiced for hundreds of years. It had seemed to be a dying ritual but since you took your seat, you have revived the Bakgatla tradition into full bloom.
But let me remind you that, the Bakgatla tradition is no special from any other tradition from the BaNgwaketse, BaLete, Bakalaka, BaNgwato and many other tribes in Botswana. The combination of all these different but similar tribal norms, values and practices, all form the Batswana tradition, the same Batswana who are led by the President who then sets judicial Botswana laws.
So all tribal norms, values and practices, though very prudent for the survival of our tradition, should not be seen to overrule the Botswana judiciary system that governs every citizen of this country, even the president himself.
But what worries me most is that, as someone who has studied law and even practised Botswana law, you have of late portrayed disturbing behaviour for someone of your academic calibre.
The court room was your second home when you were still practising law. You know all the rules and regulations one has to abide with in a court of law. You know very well what type of judicial language vocabulary or lingua franca to use when addressing certain individuals in a court of law. You know very well what type of individual mannerism and behaviour one has to behold once in a court of law.
But I would rather say different of your regiment who you are facing charges with. Some have never been in a court hearing before, some have never committed an offence or even been convicted before. But you, as knowledgeable as you are with your background, use their limited knowledge of court proceedings and because its “our Chief” who is saying we do this, then why not, he is a lawyer and our chief and will protect us.
With the use of mob-psychology, and using your Chieftainship as a tool to divert attention to the real issue of what you are all answering to, you put your foot down and asked for the removal of photographers from the court room, as you stated “I want your court to control the situation because if you don’t soon there will be exchange of fists”.
This statement left me baffled coming from a Law Graduate and Practitioner and fully fledged Paramount Chief. Lets face it Kgosi, by virtue of your birth right, you were born a person who was going to be in people eyes whether you like it or not. Your being in itself makes a high story for media. This is no different from any high profile person with media all over the world, ask the British Royals about the paparazzi that allegedly pushed Lady Diana to her death; ask Michael Jackson and family about 24hrs surveillance media coverage on him. Face it Kgosi, media will always haunt you and will follow your every move. The more you try to resist them, the more you attract them to you.
Coming all dressed up with traditional Bakgatla attire holding tools as worn by the elders and Chieftain subject is prudent in traditional Kgatla gear, or any other tribe gatherings which have some linkage to the tradition.
So what is traditional about being summoned to court for allegedly going around flogging people in the village? Those traditional gear and sticks are not worn every single day as you suggest, those men do not go daily in their own homesteads, offices, hospitals, or schools holding sticks because in their own imagery, they are an intimidation to society.
Kgosi Kgolo, Your Majesty, please do not mislead your Bakgatla children with this type of behaviour. Batswana are known on an international arena to be polite and respectful people, its a value that we have inherited from our great, great, great ancestry, and no one can take that away from us as it is value that defines and outlines a Motswana from any other nation. But if we as elders, teachers, parents, chiefs and leaders, start showing our children that our President can be ridiculed and spoken to as one pleases, then indeed, even your Bakgatla tradition and way of life that you are tirelessly trying to save, will not see the light of day in some years to come.
Batswana, if we want international recognition and respect as a country and as a people, please let us not belittle the Presidential Office as seems to be the norm nowadays. Even youngsters in our neighbouring countries who are holding high political offices have uttered words that simply show that they have no respect for our Presidential Office let alone our Government. Its about time we learn to isolate the people holding those high offices that define who we are, from the positions themselves. If someone we don’t like by some virtue takes up a high office (that is, in the absence of Democracy only anyway), we have no choice but to respect the individual because we must respect the office he holds. But what surprises me is, in Botswana, we have learnt and practised Democracy like we have learnt our national anthem. There is no one who has ever held a high Governmental office without Batswana putting them there to start with. We are the ones who put individuals in Governmental offices because through democracy, we were given a chance to put them there with the thought that they will have our best interests at heart.
If we think those individuals are not doing what we thought they would do for us, then we have no one but ourselves to blame.
