A closed-door meeting of senior Bangwato royals that was held in Serowe last Thursday has resolved to lobby district-wide support for former president Seretse Khama Ian Khama in his battle against his successor, President Mokgweetsi Masisi. The most senior royal at that meeting was Khama himself who in addition to politics, is also Bangwato’s kgosikgolo – supreme traditional leader.
Serowe sources tell Sunday Standard that the lobbying exercise will be carried out over two weeks and will take the form of kgotla meetings at each and every village in the Central District. Says a source: “Each and every village has to know why Masisi is treating Khama badly and at the end of the process, we would like an explanation from Masisi himself about why this is happening. We want to know how Khama wronged Masisi for him to be getting the treatment he is getting.”
The source adds that getting such information was actually what Serowe residents had hoped to get at last Tuesday’s meeting that was addressed by Masisi. A week prior, there was a meeting at the same kgotla that had been prompted by announcement that a search warrant had been issued for Khama and his Director-General of the Directorate of Intelligence Services and Security, Colonel Isaac Kgosi. In terms of going to bat for Khama, the Tuesday meeting didn’t achieve much. It has been alleged that the Office of the President bussed in paid actors from Shoshong, Mahalapye and Palapye to wildly cheer for Masisi, that the District Commissioners vetted the speech of the Chairperson of the Umbrella Village Development Committee and that local Khama-supporting firebrands were purposefully kept as far away from the podium as possible. In relation to the latter, it has been alleged that of all the people who got a chance to speak during the question-and-answer part of the meeting, only two were from Serowe.
Deploying a novel protest tactic, some Khama supporters displayed placards with messages that announced their grievances to the world. In a comical moment, one elderly protestor turned his placard upside down, succeeding in drawing attention to the comedy than to the substance of the message on the placard.
All in all, the Tuesday meeting was a debacle for a section of the tribe – which some contest is actually made up of members of the opposition Botswana Patriotic Front – that had hoped to take Masisi head on in dramatic fashion. They had hoped for something much more dramatic than the 2019 kgotla meeting when Wame Rapitsenyane, a Khama loyalist, took a day off at the Lotsane Senior Secondary School where he teaches Agriculture to tangle with Masisi. Evidently, lightning didn’t strike twice and the closed-door meeting two days later was meant to set the campaign against the government back on course. Khama himself travelled from Gaborone to attend the meeting, arriving in Serowe around mid-morning.
The saying uneasy lies the head that wears the crown has come to symbolise Kgosi Sediegeng Kgamane’s last days in office. From what the Bangwato regent’s face clearly communicated, he was the unhappiest camper at the “tribal meetings” that Khama called at the Serowe showgrounds after falling out with Masisi in 2019 and was apparently planning to jumping ship. Kgamane attended the Thursday meeting and given his position (he is a civil servant) was understandably unwilling to support a cause that has the government and Masisi in its hair triggers. The next phase of this cause (mobilizing support via kgotla meetings) necessarily requires Kgamane’s blessing because not only is he the custodian of all dikgotla in the Central District, he also supervises all dikgosi in the District. When Kgamane resisted at first, Khama is said to have told him in no uncertain terms that if he is not willing to get with the programme then he should step down as regent.

A version of this ultimatum was presented ahead of the kgotla meeting that discussed Khama’s search warrant – which from what we learn, Khama himself didn’t attend. A closed-door meeting discussed use of the kgotla on the reasoning that “protecting our kgosi is a tribal and not political matter.” When Kgamane indicated unwillingness to get with the programme, he was bluntly told to choose between protecting tribal interest and his job. He won’t have to make that choice any more after June 30 next year when his contract ends. While he ended up caving in, Kgamane was told that his presence at the meeting was not required. The subsequent public meeting was chaired by Mogomotsi Kaboeamodimo, the SKI Khama Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer.
The Khama-Masisi feud goes back to April 1, 2018 when the constitutional change of guard occurred. Some pinpoint the exact moment it started to be when Masisi nominated Slumber Tsogwane (and not Tshekedi, Khama’s brother) as his Vice President. It has been rumoured that Masisi’s end of the bargain in a deal through which he jumped to the head of the queue to become Vice President, was to give Tshekedi his previous position when he ascended the presidency. In terms of a realignment that occurred in 1998 under President Ketumile Masire, a Botswana Vice President is assured of ascending the presidency because he serves out the last 18 months of the second electoral term (of a year that ends with ‘8’) when the president steps down. Eighteen months is long enough for the new president to entrench himself in executive power. The second part of this theory is that the electronic voting machines that the government had controversially planned to use from 2019 would have realigned everything else in Tshekedi’s favour and perpetuated a political dynasty that goes back to the late 1800s.
The Khama-Masisi soapie, some of which is aired on Facebook, has been running since 2018 and there has never been a dull moment. Khama has complained about being denied benefits that he is legally entitled in terms of the Presidents Pension and Retirement Benefits Act which was amended while he was still in office to make it more generous. He has complained about some staff members (chefs and bodyguards) being withdrawn. For two years now, Khama has been complaining that Masisi and his Director General of the Directorate of Intelligence Services and Security, Peter Magosi, are plotting to kill him. This year, he upped the ante by reporting the matter to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Agnes Callamard. His allegations were bolstered by the position that Callamard herself has taken. In her “urgent appeal”, she invited the Botswana government to respond to allegations that she herself finds credible.
“Without prejudging the accuracy of these allegations, the information received appears to be sufficiently reliable to raise serious concern about the risk to the life of former President Ian Khama,” Callamard writes in the Urgent Appeal.
In another part of the Appeal, she writes that the allegations that Khama makes are “supported by reference to a range of sources” that she however does not name.
“Three intelligence agencies from states outside Botswana have issued credible warnings of threats to Mr. Khama’s life. The warnings were partially based on intercepted communications, including those of the authorities,” reads the Urgent Appeal’s most startling part.