Thursday, July 10, 2025

Looks aside, Guma Moyo has beautiful brains

There is one thing you cannot take away from Tati West Member of Parliament Samson Guma Moyo. While all other characteristics that make him can be subjected to debate, his independent-mindedness is undisputable.

What Guma believes in, Guma does and says without any fear or favour. Even some of the seemingly stupid political decisions he has made, I can assure you Guma made them under no duress. He made those decisions solely because he believed it was right for him to make them and not necessarily to appease or lick anyone’s behind. I say this authoritatively because I have interacted with him several times on a personal level where I had the opportunity to challenge him over some of his silly (in my view) decisions and he has all the time managed to convince me that everything he does, is dictated by his clear conscience and conviction. I respect a man who is able to defend his decisions, no matter how stupid other people may view them.

Guma is such a man. Even though he belongs in the political party of self-confessed bootlickers, Guma has no bolope DNA in his system. Guma is one of those rare BDP MP’s who does not go to parliament to oppose any motion that comes from the opposition bench just to side with, and please the BDP leadership. BDP is abundantly blessed with such zombies in parliament, who follow every instruction from the party leadership even where such instructions betray their conscience and stance. We all know how a majority of BDP MP’s are so hoodwinked into the ‘Dear Leader’ mentality so much they believe President Khama’s happiness must take precedence over God’s commandments.

Every time they have to choose between the wishes of Khama and the electorates, they elect to stick out their middle fingers at the latter. Guma is one BDP MP who has, more often, not shied away from making statements that may rub Khama the wrong way. He has stood up to condemn some of Khama’s populist programs. He has stood up to condemn Khama for paying civil servants while expecting them to deliver. Guma, just like the rest of us who are not irretrievably and pathetically whipped into sycophancy and denialism, has come out to say the only reason students perform badly is because their teachers are not happy. You do not need any experts to tell you why students fail their examinations because the answer is there for everyone to see; the teachers are not happy. Guma recently addressed a Kgotla meeting in his constituency and I liked how he put his saddles on the truth.

He revealed a very honest state of our nation, devoid of the usual denials and propaganda we always hear from President Khama every time he goes to parliament to give his State of the Nation address. Every time he has to account for the sorry state of our nation, Khama never misses to make the media and other irrelevant societal phenomena his scapegoat. I am glad Guma is steel-balled enough to tell it the way it is and not the way Khama wants it to be said. Guma says Batswana are frustrated and I concur. We are all frustrated. Khama’s sycophants are frustrated. As for Khama, he is even more frustrated than the rest of us because in his heart of hearts, he knows he is the source of this nation’s frustrations. Forget about the fake smile he splashes every time he has the opportunity to dance polka far away from the State House.

The man is glaringly frustrated it even frustrates me more to think how frustrating it must be for him to be a frustrated president. Just in case you missed what Guma reportedly said at his Kgotla meeting, allow me to share extracts from his speech, courtesy of the Botswana Gazette; “Just recently I was speaking to one minister and I was just looking at these Ipelegeng workers cutting the grass and one could tell just from looking at them that our people are frustrated and they are hopeless. And I was asking him if this is the situation we want for our people; for them to live in so much pain. No, Ipelegeng is not sustainable and we need to give these people hope, hope that their lives will improve”. Guma was very right I would have lifted him high in the sky had I been in his audience.

Ipelegeng is such nonsense I cringe every time I hear BDP leaders commend it. I mean, what can anyone do with a meager P400 in the year 2014? Show me anyone who has raised lobola out of Ipelegeng money. You cannot even purchase a bicycle with Ipelegeng remuneration. The money cannot see you through the month even if you buy basic groceries and toiletries and stick to a daily diet of phaleche and phane. That is how pathetic Ipelegeng is. These people have to pay transport fares to their working stations and you wonder what gets left as take home from the peanuts they receive from this heartless regime.

Our government is even failing to pay them the minimum wage that was set by the same government. It is so nauseating to hear our leaders admit that Ipelegeng is not classified as employment yet they have the nerve to include Ipelegeng workers in the statistics of the working class. What the current regime is doing to our people is very cruel and one day God will remember there is a country called Botswana which needs to be saved from these greedy and heartless politicians who rejoice at the frustrations of the masses. One day God will relieve my people from this stupid belief that poverty eradication means giving them soup and diphaphatha. One day will be one day!

[email protected] Twitter:@kuvuki

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