Some years back President Festus Mogae tagged along Botsalo Ntuane and Dumelang Saleshando as he embarked on an official visit to Brazil.
There was neither farce nor fuss.
Nobody asked why or who had invited an opposition leader to be part of the president entourage.
Upon arrival back from Brazil the president announced that Brazil would be opening an embassy in Gaborone.
As so it was. The then president of Brazil Lula da Silva arrived briefly in Gaborone to officially open the embassy.
A recent visit to Zambia by president Mokgweetsi Masisi has elicited unnecessary and divisive ramblings because Dumelang Saleshando was part of the entourage.
The situation has been worsened by interviews given by Masisi and his foreign minister Lemogang Kwape on state television upon arrival.
In their interviews the two men effectively reduced an entire state business to an individual – Dumelang Saleshando.
What a shame, given the immensely symbolic significance of the visit to Zambia.
President Masisi was in Zambia to observe handover of power from a ruling party to an opposition party. That transfer of power had been seamless.
How could president Masisi have missed this important and historic moment?
For Africa, often portrayed by the international media as an outpost of dictatorship and failed states, this transfer of power cannot be overempasised.
The founder of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda has just recently passed on.
How could Masisi and Kwape fail to make the death of this important historical figure that liberated Africa a talking point upon their return from Zambia!
Botswana and Zambia have just completed a project in a transnational bridge linking the two countries.
How could a president and his foreign minister miss to see that they needed to reassure Batswana that even with a change of government in Zambia, their investments with that country are still safe?
Zambia now has a new government – what is the way forward for exceedingly important ties that Botswana has with that country?
Is this not worth talking about in a prime time interview with Botswana Television?
Instead the two doctors chose to focus on how opposition leader Dumelang Saleshando ended up inside a presidential jet.
Has Botswana become so poor in intellect that being inside a presidential jet has become a matter of national discourse?
This is how far down the tube we have now gone as a nation.
We have indeed regressed.
Foreigners are busy amassing wealth and Batswana are busy fighting over an invitation to a presidential inauguration ceremony in Zambia.
How could the same foreigners here, who are working in close coordination with the elite to disempower indigenous Batswana not laugh at us?
The blame should be put squarely on president Masisi for allowing pettiness to take root among key staff members in his office. They are the ones fueling this nonsense.
These are the people who are not concerned with nation building but with mundane stuff that they perceive to be luxury that sets them apart from ordinary people – like flying in a presidential jet.
These people are not only divisive but are also yet to fully comprehend what state power really means.
The ramblings over who invited Dumelang Saleshando to Zambia is only a symptom of a system that is breaking at the seams.
Over the last few weeks the nation has watched in a mixture of anger and bewilderment as acts that border on criminality played out right before our eyes.
Week after week minister Kabo Morwaeng has been dragged before parliament to provide political legitimacy and popular approval for these acts of madness.
As a consequence, Morwaeng has become a comical relief incarnate for people reeling from the health effects and economic ramifications of Covid 19. They watch his exploits in parliament in parliament and at long last they have something to laugh at – a tragicomedy is playing inside parliament.
Cutting a sorry state that often resembles that of an armature conman he has stumbled from one big gaffe to another.
He knows what he is up to.
Morwaeng is playing dice with serious state matters.
It is clear he is yet to fully understand the gravity of his responsibilities.
As a disclaimer, I have known Morwaeng for many years now.
He is a likeable person. He is also a gifted political foot soldier.
But coordinating as many people as he now is expected to do as a Minister of State appears to be totally alien to his abilities.
His handlers are also manifestly letting him down and even short-changing him.
As a churchman he would do himself a great favour by striving to at least bring basic ethos of honesty into official answers prepared for him by his handlers.
Sadly he is still wedded to political rally banter even when addressing the nation through parliament.
Batswana should not allow themselves to be used as voting fodder.
It would be tragic to put into power a government, entrust it with billions and have blanket faith without holding them accountable.
This government knows no borders when it comes to expansiveness.
This week the in the Presidency demonstrated that for the second time in as many weeks – obviously at immense cost to his personal reputation.
Damaging self reputation does not seem to matter for now.
His overriding priority is to be an enabler of whatever his political principals are intent on doing.
He can attend to mending his reputation later.
Morwaeng attracts both sympathy and resentment.
Sympathy because he has fought really valiantly.
As a minister in the presidency he is the one closest to the heat as government stumbles from one gaffe to the other. Resentment because even an uninitiated politician could do a much better job to spin through the morass that he so visibly is unable to traverse.
In the two incidents in parliament – both at the hands of Dumelang Saleshando, minister Morwaeng committed a faux pas after a faux pas.
In both cases he was grappling with much bigger issues than just justifying and defending the land acquisition by government.
The underlying issues include government incompetence, growing corruption, ruling party internal fighting and indeed a loss of public trust on government.
Morwaeng should start taking parliament with seriousness.
He says government bought Tautonal Lodge in Ghanzi for agriculture research.
Why should his ministry be the one answering to issues of agriculture in parliament.
For a born again Christian this is bad enough.
If he was Catholic, he would be skating on the verge of being ex-communicated.
He did exactly the same thing last week on a another similarly mysterious matter of land acquisition by his ministry.
Botswana government has many underutilised farms across the country.
Why is it important for them to pay more than P58 million for a farm?
Who needs all that?
This is shocking. And it says a lot to our government priorities.
What is the national strategic reason for acquiring Tautona lodge?
You know you have a government that is going rogue when they hide behind a curtain of security alibis every time they are called to account.
It has been drama after drama every time they are required to account for the Covid-19 related procurement – especially the consumables, all of which happened during the State of Emergency.
Our government gives an impression that they are in chaos.
They have certainly lost a lot of public faith.
They are suffering from what the Americans call “trust deficit.”
Many years of institutional credibility have been carelessly squandered.
Recently the country was also treated to another circus regarding a huge chunk of land that the Office of the President acquired at the Okavango.
The plot is 21 kilometres by 8 kilometres. This is big by any measure, bigger than many towns and villages in Botswana.
They want to build a resort for the president.
This government is fast approaching a state of becoming irredeemable.
While ordinary Batswana are fighting Covid 19 literally every day and with bare hands Botswana government is looking at ways to extend the comforts of a president and his visitors.
To be fair this government has to account on exactly what it has done for Batswana since winning elections.
Too many laws have been fast-tracked through parliament.
A closer look at these laws does not even reveal what exactly is in it for poor ordinary Batswana.
We are becoming a laughing stock.
