This call is not just anti-Khama propaganda. It is a sincere, righteous, obligatory and legitimate call that is motivated by a desire to halt the vile that is driving our nation into the ground. It is a call motivated by a sense of honour and duty, a desire to put one’s country ahead of own desires. It is an honest appeal to the first citizen, the most eminent, the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, His Excellency the President of the Republic of Botswana to consider resigning from the presidency.
This unprecedented and unexpected decision to call on President Khama is informed by an honest assessment of his presidency after serving half of his constitutional term of office. To begin with, in his inauguration speech on April 1, 2008 President Khama quoted former state President Festus Mogae having remarked that ‘I have not allowed political expediency and the pursuit of populism to cloud my judgment and service to the nation. For the road to political expediency and populism may be lined with cheering crowds, but in the end we cannot escape the cold fact of our limitation as a developing country. Harsh punishment awaits a nation that spends unwisely in pursuit of immediate gratification rather than sustainable development.’ President Khama went on to loudly proclaim that ‘these are indeed wise words, words I wish to identify with’.
Let us be reminded that this inauguration speech was not just an ordinary speech perhaps delivered at a graduation party for a reception class. It was a speech that he delivered as he took the oath of office. It was a special speech that President Khama used to affirm the promise of his leadership. Thus, when the same individual turns around to mock his own words, he must be asked to account. The Badge of Courage is fully alive to the reality that President Khama still has a healthy balance of years before his constitutional term of office ends. Furthermore, the Badge of Courage is fully aware that President Khama is still very much celebrated by a considerable number of destitute people in the rural areas. However, President Khama must not think of himself but about the country ÔÇô what would be in the interest of the country. It is further noted that in his speech made famous by the now defunct 4Ds roadmap, President Khama remarked that ‘this is our country, the only country we have’, a hard fact which petitions all of us to defend it with passion against eloquent despots or filibusters. It is no secret that ‘our country, the only country we have’ is in shambles in its entirety. The Executive arm of the government is virtually hopeless, unimaginative, feeble-minded and dysfunctional.
Yet, in his speech President Khama loudly announced that he shall start by laying out to the Cabinet his expectations of them with respect to making good on the pledges he made to Batswana. There is therefore an urgent need to prop up the Executive but what is clear is that the quality of the people making up the Executive is all down to the choice of the appointing authority being President Khama. His appointments are bizarre, lacklustre and simply outrageous. Largely motivated by political expediency, the appointments are essentially corrupted and run counter to what President Khama said he identifies with. We have been told that the fish rot from the head and admitting that the Executive can no longer have the basic intelligence for smart ideas, President Khama as the chief executive officer must stand down as a matter of logic.
Still in the same speech, President Khama observed that ‘as part of a team charged with delivering services and development to the nation, I hope they are all up to task because those unable to deliver cannot be kept on the team’. True to his words, a considerable number of senior managers have been retired or dismissed allegedly for poor performance. There comes a time in the life of team when it becomes apparent that the fundamental cause of its dismal performance is its leadership. That time is upon this nation. In effect, President Khama should accept that he is not up to task and step down voluntarily. He has consistently walked the talk and forced many senior managers to flee and it is now time for him to relinquish his presidency.
Enough innocent souls have been victimized and now the real culprit must go. Botswana’s economy, one of the fastest growing economies in the world for ages, has stagnated since President Khama’s stewardship. Trust and confidence in our economy has tumbled. The economic woes for the common man and youth unemployment mean that Batswana cannot be proud of who they are and what they have achieved since independence. Whereas President Khama articulated these issues in his inauguration speech and subsequent speeches as critical issues needing ‘special emphasis’, the interventions promulgated are an insult to the dignity of our people and perhaps indicate the extent to which President Khama has lost touch with reality and must, for the sake of Botswana ÔÇô the only country we have, step down gracefully. When economic and political refugees start going back to their home countries whose economies and politics have not improved the slightest, we should really be worried.
Incidents of public shooting of suspects by security agents are a new experience in Botswana and their frequency classifies Botswana as country that proudly sponsors state terrorism. The torture and disappearance of suspects in the custody of security operatives has reached crisis levels yet the authorities seem unbothered. Today Batswana live in fear of violent criminals and security agents and His Excellency must take full responsibility for this and go. Our past leaders bestowed upon us a highly professional and proficient public service that has been the pioneer of our achievements over the last decades.
Unfortunately, Khama’s regime has paralyzed the public service with skilled, experienced and competent bureaucrats humiliated, shamed and shipped out to give way to his lapdogs. Under these circumstances, it is day dreaming to have any hopes that bureaucrats could be motivated to deliver services and development. In any case, many of them spend quality time seeking to defend President Khama’s bizarre programs instead of implementing government policies. The only comfort for Batswana is that we are into a new year and Khama’s days in the office are numbering.
At the close of 2014, the Office of the President postponed the Francistown West Parliamentary by-election on account of a bogus petition. There has not been any statement from the Presidency despite overwhelming evidence that the petition was a fraud in ways that suggest that those who are aggrieved can go hang. This is unprecedented blatant arrogance by the highest office and makes the incumbent unfit to continue as Head of State. However, the Badge of Courage’s greatest worry relates to President Khama’s penchant to exploit the Presidency Office for personal gain. Reports that President Khama uses public resources to build himself villas worry the most. The Mosu compound and the adjacent airstrip are physical projects that were always going to be spotted. It is scary to imagine other clandestine ways through which public resources could have been diverted to enrich the president. Newspaper reports linking President Khama’s business interests to what appear to be questionable business undertakings by his associates are just too ghastly to contemplate as it compromises the security of the nation. It is un-presidential even in African standards to take on the deeds of a mafia syndicate and engage in massive land grabbing and looting while citizens stampede for residential plots the size of his pet house. While President has every right to invest for the future, it becomes risky when the president uses the stature of his office to arm twist state institutions to bend over and flaunt laid down processes to his advantage. It is tragic to imagine that Khama’s presidency is driven by his desire to amass wealth rather than govern with diligence.
Granted every nation has, at some point in time, to contend with crippling challenges. However, the interventions put in place to normalize the situation are what distinguish intelligent leaders from hallow-minded-fame-seeking-poor man’s favourite despots. Our inability as a nation to find meaningful and sustainable solutions to our problems suggests that we need to re-engineer state machinery from the head and to do so, the nation’s principal accounting officer must step aside to allow the re-building exercise to commence smoothly. His Excellency President Khama must take full responsibility for every unfulfilled promise, every death at the hands of security operatives, for every robbery, abortion, miscarriage, rape, murder, load-shedding, water rationing, corrupt transaction, botched projects, school drop-out, retrenchment, poverty and all of it. These challenges are an outgrowth of the deteriorating quality of life of a majority of citizens, itself a consequence of President Khama’s leadership.
A greater part of their solutions lay in his immediate resignation, so that civil servants can get back to work; security agents act responsibly and benevolently; corrupt greedy bastards are closed out; celebrity whores live a dignified life, and everything that is wrong is put right to return Botswana to normalcy as a pioneer of African democracy and prosperity. It does not matter that President Khama will laugh at this call, but this is such a weighty clarion call. The world, especially where leaders account to their people, now knows that an influential and prominent section of Botswana’s community want their state president out. It is not often that a state president is called upon to resign, yet when that happens and the incumbent carries on, the effects are enormous and crippling. Precisely, the incumbent loses respect amongst his peers and is bound to be treated with contempt like a guardian who has abused orphans under his care. The call effectively puts the actions of Khama regime on trial. It is a sacrosanct motion of no confidence and a public denouncement of his presidency.
The Badge of Courage call upon you all, the people of Botswana and concerned world citizens to peacefully mobilize and to raise the banner of freedom, justice and prosperity for the Botswana society that is suffering the indignity of being a new skunk of the world.
Happy 2014!