By the time you read this the President – Dr. Mokgweetsi Masisi would be a few hours from reading his State of the Nation Address speech or even have read it already.
The President gives his fifth state of the nation address at a time when there are a lot of expectations from his office by Batswana.
These expectations are a result of the many promises that President Masisi made during the 2019 political campaigns. It is the nature of politicians to make promises to almost everyone during election campaign periods like what happened in 2019.
The President gives his fifth state of the nation address at a time when the nation of Botswana is facing what could be classified as the hardest economic hit in the last few years. Even the 2008/09 global recession was not as bad as the hit made by the Europe war.
The President is also giving his fifth state of the nation address at a time when there seems to be a great division within our society. This we can never shy away from mentioning. While the recent economic hardship has contributed to this division, the polarization seems to be coming from as far as ten-plus years ago. The great division has been brewing for quite some time now and there seem to be no deliberate efforts to close the gap.
As President Masisi gives his fifth state of the nation address, he should not shy away from highlighting this great division in his speech. It would take the President’s address and admission on the great divide to unify Batswana and get them to work towards a common goal of rebuilding Botswana. It would take the President’s address on the great division to bring back politics of substance that has since been replaced with bootlicking.
This might be a personal opinion/observation but indications are that our nation is getting ripped apart with each passing day. There is a clear division amongst Batswana and it would take ONLY the state President to stop or at the bare minimum start the process of stopping it. Whether we want to deny it, the division within our nation is massively there and if we do not address it now it will likely end in tears for many of us. The silence of many well-known opinion leaders should be one of the earliest signals that our national agenda has taken a wrong path. The objective opinion leader’s silence is because sometimes, people like them give up on public affairs when they feel the nation has ended up on the road to nowhere. Their silence is not because the key socio-economic issues they have been talking about over the years are no more. Their silence is because in a country like ours, sometimes it’s better to shut up to avoid putting oneself at loggerheads with those who think one is infringing on their authority. When a democracy reaches a point where some of its people chose silence over voicing out then the leaders of the moment must be worried. This is why President Masisi needs to ensure that his administration does not only talk about but also acts on inclusiveness and unity. We cannot close the existing economic gap between the rich and the poor if we are to target those who tend to have an alternative opinion or view on any given public affairs matter.
We are at a point of economic development where most Batswana are keen to see some viable measures to address the issue of Joblessness, Landlessness, and Moneylessness being put in place. If we are to do it right, we are certainly going to need alternative views and better still diverse solutions put on the table. Our stubbornly high-income inequality is a problem that only continues to grow and contributes significantly to the growing gulf between rich and poor. It has the potential to cost President Masisi a great deal of public support. That is why any opportunity must be given, the President should use it to encourage the citizens to pull in the same direction. The #Bottomline is that as the head of the government in a country mired in many deep and seemingly intractable problems, President Masisi would benefit more from strong economic performance, and such could start with a mere unifying SONA.
