This is one of those rear moments I find myself having to pen an article of this nature. I am at pains but absolutely I am having no choice. In the year 2012, I made a decision that NEVER again will I ever find myself having to write about President Ian Khama. It was just a choice I made mainly due to my loss of interest and appetite in writing about the Man. I was finding it rhetorical and outright boring to continue writing about SKI. Yes off course not forgetting that the man is powerful, he is the King of the most powerful and populous nation, the Bangwato, he is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces and also the President of the Republic of Botswana, and the youngest Brigadier this country has ever had and will ever have.
The events of the past weekend; Khama Vs Nasha left me completely puzzled and a worried man. I asked myself many questions as to why? JUST WHY? Would “Lepako” react so harshly against Dr Nasha’s move and choice to join opposition politics? I asked myself as to whether the President’s scathing attack on Dr Margaret Nasha was justified and called for. I found that very un-fortunate, reckless, petty and outright childish. That “Dr Nasha is old and ungrateful….Some people in the party have got to where they are because of the BDP…If you lose an election, you dump the party, your family, shame”. Although having been provoked I also equally asked myself questions as to whether it was necessary for Dr Nasha to embarrass Khama and the family that they dismally failed beyond imaginations at Maruapula School to the extent of getting J grades. Bleksms!
I always find myself having to go back to reading Ayi Kwei Armah’s novel “The Beautiful Ones are not yet born.” In this novel Armah showed his deep concern for rampant greed and political corruption by African elites. In one of the chapters Armah gives an account of corruption as per the following except ‘The un-named protagonist referred to as ‘the man’ works at a railway station and is approached with a bribe, when he refuses his wife is furious and he can’t help feeling guilty despite his innocence’.
I must admit reading Armah’s novel written many years ago always brings me closer home about the corrupt practices that go on in this country. The past weekend’s episode between Khama vs. Dr Nasha bears testimony to this. Khama’s reaction by telling Dr Nasha that she lived off the BDP, was appointed and rewarded with positions of power by the BDP, was fed by BDP, is indeed sad and somewhat an embarrassment to BDP and the nation. How sad!!! When many of us have always believed that appointments are done based on meritocracy and not partisan politics and favouritism, the President of the country SKI disputes and refutes that.
It must be noted that this is not the first time the “King of Bangwato”, the self-branded Lepako” (a term used in Setswana to mean a strong and tough un-breakable log) reacts so harshly to a loss of their own to opposition politics. He did it when BMD was formed, so much so that he just lost it by labelling BMD as an acronym for “Barata Maemo Disease”
Khama prefers to work with errand boys and girls who once in a while he addresses with derogatory pet names at times ridiculing them about their weight and their being obese. Rather than focusing on the ways and methods on how to save his party as well as developing a strategy to make the BDP more attractive and provide mechanisms for avoiding future exodus of its members to BMD out of frustration found it fitting to extend his anger to Dr Nasha. He once did it against the venomous Julius Malema.
Khama’s hate speech on Malema at ‘Diswinking Freedom Square’ left me completely puzzled. For the first time in my life I began to doubt his public presentation skills. Following a BDP election victory rally held at Diskwiking Freedom Squire in Old Naledi where Khama showed his hitherto unknown dancing skills in the back of the truck, I opined in the Sunday Standard of 1st November 2009 that Khama’s self-branded ‘Lepako’ had failed to perform wonders for BDP in the 2009 election and that the election results did not show any significant growth. To this day I still maintain that. Despite the fact that Khama has always taken to trading on his celebrity status using his built- in- name recognition in society as paramount chief of the Bangwato, he is a flop, a petty and jealous leader.
Unfortunately for BDP and the Khama Fan Club (KFC) the honeymoon period is coming to an end. Its captain is failing the party and if does not change, he will cost the party now and in future. Few like Dr Nasha are born. Dr Nasha is a honest lady; she in fact loves and likes Khama. She is not a pretender and if I was SKI, I will start treating her nicely. Khama must avoid bulldozing everything and everyone. He must not only listen to those who polish his shoes, those are dangerous parasites, who will milk him dry. Those see him only as a honey pot. They will never disagree with him, even when clear that the decision suggested or made are suicidal. On the other hand those closest to HE, are probably the ones responsible for making him look good whilst in actual fact they are not sincere, they probably agree with everything he says knowing fully well that this is what he likes most, that probably they have noticed his weaknesses in that – praise him ÔÇô you will be rewarded. I know of some Mongwato fool, or rather let me say Mokalaka wa Mongwato , some over draft millionaire in his 50’s, a show off, who is so obsessed about Khama and could even kill for him.
In any case people should not be fooled – citizens should not be fooled. There is no better politician and some if not all of them are all ‘Tsotsis’. Despite the name callings such as self-seeking, unprincipled, intolerant, self-fish vultures and monkeys, politics being a dirty game is full of ‘Tsotsis’. I always those close to me that I also harbour ambitions of one day becoming the President of the Republic of Botswana and their response always is “ Dream on Thabo.”
