Truly speaking, I’m fed up with this public workers’ strike. I want it over, like yesterday. It is eight weeks now since public officers embarked on tools down, bringing government business to a near standstill. Public schools and health facilities have been immensely affected with almost no teaching and services rendered to the students and the sick. Endless meetings have been and continue to be convened in an effort to bring to an end the impasse between government and union members. No solution seems forthcoming.
What started off as a wage dispute between the employer, that is, government through the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM) and the employees through the Botswana Federation of Public Service Unions (BOFEPUSU), has now turned into a national crisis. The entire nation is caught in the whole saga. Everyone is affected, directly or indirectly.
So serious is the situation that former presidents have had to abandon the comfort of their retirement hammocks and intervene. Priests have had to shift from their normal duties of preaching at church and announcing how dust is going back to dust and ashes to ashes at cemeteries as they conduct burials. They have now become mediators between government and her employees. Members of parliament from across the political divide had to force the no-nonsense Speaker of the national assembly to convene a special national assembly. Cabinet ministers have been booed and left running helter-skelter in pursuit of their personal safety as they attempted to address Kgotla meetings in various towns and villages, without success.
Government media has been bluntly feeding the nation one sided stories full of blue lies. Union leaders have been detained and arraigned before the courts of law with charges of incitement, or was it just excitement from law enforcement officers. Private media have been having a field day.
While the editorial team was running out of space to report on the ongoing strike, their advertising colleagues were also cashing in on the advertisements from the unions and government as both parties wanted to sell their side of the story/propaganda to the nation.
It has been hectic, with schools closing and opening within the blink of eye. Police officers setting themselves on tear gas. Media reports allege that an innocent bystander was shot by riot police. Who knows, maybe they shot him for standing by the roadside without taking part while his contemporaries were protesting for better salaries. But then again if our police officers can amateurishly detonate tear gas on themselves, how are we to be surprised when they miss target and shoot innocent bystanders. A lot has happened during this strike. A blockbuster of Hollywood standards can be put together out of it. Facebook has become the greatest invention of all times after Marion Donovan’s disposable diapers.
As everyone has been rising to the occasion, there has been only one man missing. No I’m lying. The man has not been missing. Rather he has been having a different mission and approach to the impasse. I’m convinced that as people from all walks of life have been trying to find a solution to the impasse, this one man has been trying to find a solution to his victory. To this one man, this strike is a war that must have casualties and victors. To him, this is a race that he must win, at all costs. This explains why this one man has not bothered to attend a single meeting with any of the parties that he, unfortunately, to him are his competitors. He is convinced in his heart of hearts that this wage dispute is a political agenda pushed by opposition parties. He is convinced that the workers are slaves who are supposed to be submissive to the employer as the master and as such he cannot come to terms with this kind of rebellion. Therefore to him, only one monster can incite the workers to finally realize that they are due for wage adjustment. The thought of yielding to the demands of which he is so clearly convinced are from opposition leaders drives this man crazy. I tell you, he could shoot somebody over such thoughts. He is only waiting for a go ahead from his trusted lawyer cum de facto attorney general.
We all want this strike to end. I, for one, have been affected by the strike and I want it over already. I have been encouraging my sister to take part in the strike and for that I have had to pay big. With the no work no pay rule, I was forced to ‘pay’ my sister what government refused to pay her during her stay away. This is how the strike has affected me as I now had to cut my monthly indulgence to cushion my sister’s awful situation. This goes to show how the strike has affected even those outside government payroll. The people that have had their salaries cut have been forced to do the same to their herdsmen, house helpers and gardeners. The unemployed who rely on the employed to share a pint of Chibuku or a cup of sugar have also been affected. Now you see how this man is punishing even the unemployed while on the other hand he claims to have their plight at heart.
Armed with this cockeyed constitution of ours, this man is all out to rein terror on all of us. For as long as he believes he has enemies in his countrymen, this man will do anything vengeful to win any protracted battle even if it hurts those he loves or claims to love. This man, though good at faking it, doesn’t care about this nation. He is only cashing in on our naivety, our excitement, our love and respect for anything that looks unusual or foreign. He knows that just because he is different from all our previous leaders, we will hold him in great awe. I dare anyone to carry out a survey and find out why this nation loves this man and I can assure you of shocking responses.
Some will tell you they love him only because of his parents. Some will tell you they only love him because he can take to the skies in a chopper. Some will tell you they are crazy about his craziness for fitness. Some just love his broken Setswana and nothing more. I only love him as a person because I have nothing personal against him. Afterall he has not and cannot take my girlfriend or spill my beer. Therefore I only hate his love for dictatorship. I only hate the self-made-God in him.
Because his lawyer has read and translated our constitution vigorously to him, this man is very sure that even as he does what he does, no one can do anything to him. This is why this man can arrogantly refuse to listen to members of parliament including those that have elevated him to his position. You would expect the members of parliament to be the voice of the nation because the nation directly votes them into their positions. In the same breath you would expect a president to represent the voice of the members of parliament because they are the ones who put him to his position but alas, not with this man. To him, everyone can go hang if everyone is not happy with his leadership style. Not even in fiction movies have I seen a president who defies even the demands of his army. Only God can be this brave and as such if we want this strike to come to an end, we need to kneel down and pray to our God who art on earth.
