‘‘I feel a premonition that girl’s gonna make me fall…she’ll make you take your clothes off and go dancing in the rain..she’ll make you live her crazy life but she’ll take away your pain like a bullet to your brain.. come on! Upside, inside out she’s living la vida loca. Her lips are devil red and her skin’s the colour mocha”.
Those are excerpts from the lyrics of number-one hit song by Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin. La vida loca is Spanish and it translates to mean ‘the crazy life’. Recently Gaborone City Mayor Kagiso Thutwe has been parrying an avalanche of accusations from his comrades in the Umbrella for Democratic Party (UDC) who feel he is living la vida loca. They accuse him of being ‘’fascinated by glamour”. God have mercy on people who are not fascinated by glamour. A few weeks back, the youthful Mayor threw what remains the mother of all parties at an upmarket night club at Phakalane where he dined and danced the night away with the who is who of the city. He didn’t stop there. He even invited proper celebrities from South Africa. The next day, social media was awash with pictures of the Mayor having a good time, sandwiched between fine young things. A sucker for finer things in life, the Mayor even posed puffing on some Cuban cigar with his face engulfed in smoke.
Kenny Kunene must have looked at those photos green with envy. I won’t be surprised if more photos emerge showing the Mayor eating sushi off naked women’s loins. Kagiso was having a blast. He went big! Heaven had come to earth for him. He smiled like a Cheshire cat all night, proving he was having a jolly time in his city. His comrades at the opposition were however annoyed by this display of the good life. I just looked at them and shook my head in disbelief. I mean, why should the Mayor’s la vida loca turn out to be a pain in their sorry behinds? Come on my people! The Mayor is just enjoying his youth. That he has been given the responsibility to run this little boring city should not relegate him to the league of old timers. Let us scold him for not doing his job and not for enjoying his youth outside work. There is absolutely nothing illegal or immoral that the Mayor did. The Mayor is not a minor and as such he is at liberty to waste away his lungs on whiskey and cigars.
The Mayor is not married and as such he is free to dance all night with young suitors. Almost thereafter, Kagiso went on to add salt to injury when he accompanied President Ian Khama on a trip to Lesotho for that country’s 50th independence celebrations. His comrades got incensed. They went ballistic. How on earth does one of their own find it proper to accompany the leader of their rival political party to a nice time outside the country? They asked with infuriation. Rumours even started doing the rounds Kagiso was on his way to joining the likes of nobodies such as Lotty and Thato Osupile. They viewed Khama’s gesture as enticement to lure the Mayor to the ruling party. Yes, given what Okavango MP Bagalatia Arone did to his comrades, one cannot just dismiss the level of paranoia displayed by opposition. It was so embarrassing listening to Arone tell the nation that he defected to the BDP because Khama once gave him a ride in a helicopter to Shakawe.
The opposition must have therefore thought, if Arone got mesmerized by a ride in the helicopter, what more of Kagiso who rode in the presidential OK1. You see I have interacted with the Mayor on several occasions and he doesn’t strike me as someone who can be so stupid to be blown away by a one hour ride in an aeroplane. In fact, I put it to you the flight must have been so damn boring for the Mayor because they don’t serve alcohol in there. He was just in the company of some stuck-up government officials who are probably afraid to even ‘eat news’ amongst themselves when aboard the presidential jet. It must have been an erringly quiet flight to Maseru and back. That is not how our Mayor rolls. You see, unlike Thapelo Olopeng who used to fly with Khama in his capacity as the President’s buddy, Kagiso accepted the invitation in his official capacity as the custodian of the country’s capital city. I doubt he even had a chance to break bread with Khama but even if he did, I will have overrated his intelligence if it turns out the one hour flight blew him away.
As I have already mentioned, Kagiso is a young guy who interacts with his contemporaries and flying OK1 should only give him bragging rights and nothing more. It was important for Kagiso to fly in the presidential jet so that when he gets to his home village over Christmas, he will have something to tell his home boys and leave them with envy. I think his comrades are just reading too much out of his lifestyle. Imagine they also wanted him to boycott the country’s independence celebrations hosted right in his city. That would have been wrong in all aspects. As for me, I am happy to have leaders such as Kagiso who live la vida loca. I want a leader like Kagiso who, by the look of his taste, he will have no problem inviting Beyonce and Rihanna to national events here. We can’t keep being entertained by Slizer and Charma Gal all the time. Of course I don’t trust politicians, Kagiso included. They always have reasons for their defections but before he proves he is no different from the likes of Lotty,Osupile, Majadibodu and Arone, let the Mayor live la vida loca.
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