Saturday, February 8, 2025

Prosecute Khama, Kgosi and take them to the cleaners – or the whole thing smacks of political persecution

“The law is the law is the law.”

That is what lawyers like to say, often in a vain attempt to show that they are a separate species from the rest of us.

A related quotation I still remember from President Festus Mogae when he addressed a press conference over twenty years ago was when he said “the law is an ass.”

Both of these quotations must be hanging heavily on former president Ian Khama this week as he continued a defiant stand off against what he perceives an egregious harassment of a citizen by the state.

My hope is that Ian Khama never leaves the country, but instead stays put, either to prove his innocence or in the unlikely outcome, to serve jail term if he has to.

As president, Ian Khama was infinitely legalistic. Every big decision he took he would challenge detractors to test it at the courts.

And he had a host of lawyers to ensure that he operated with the thin corridors of the law.

At a party level he had Parks Tafa – a hard working lawyer with a demeanour of a street fighter.

And inside government the whole of the Attorney General chambers ensured that. But here too Tafa was never too far away.

The relationship between Ian Khama and president Mokgweetsi Masisi is tearing the country apart.

Neither man seems to care – or at the very least understand the long term ramifications of their catfight on national unity.

As president Ian Khama was not angel.

He persecuted people, humiliated others and destroyed careers.

The media, especially this paper was especially his nemesis.

But then I will be the last one to join the bandwagon to persecute him.

In fact I will do the same for Mokgweetsi Masisi if anybody tried to persecute him when he leaves office.

Masisi is today a president. But then he too is not an angel.

He has a short fuse, is irascible and terribly poor at managing relations.

Of course a whole country has been dragged into an ego fight.

It’s all or nothing.

And that should be a big deal.

For ruling party members you have to support the president, or you have no future.

For Bangwato you have to support your chief, or take the highway.

Even for the non-aligned, there is a price to pay.

Clearly the president is unable to think properly because in everything he thinks about he needs to factor in Khama.

He has to do something that would at the very least hurt, embarrass or spite Khama.

In the end that is costly for the country.

At the moment the president is going around the country, addressing the people.

This would be a noble idea, not least because it is an opportunity to see democracy at work.

But no! insecurity is playing all out in public.

We are treated to outbursts and thinly veiled swipes at the former president.

Just how those benefits Batswana many of who are still recovering from the effects of covid and an economy on its knees, nobody says.

Thankfully many Batswana have moved on.

They rightly interpret the whole thing as a circus.

They have lost both interest and trust in the belligerents.

There is a growing conviction among Batswana that at the bottom of it all, for either side really, is self-centeredness, megalomania, narcissism, insecurity, egotism and pettiness.

You might hear statements and hyperboles to the contrary, it is all hogwash. Neither is fighting the other for the good of the nation.

It is leadership failure. And it makes a lot of people really angry.

Botswana has failed to groom people fit enough to become heads of State.

For the president it is a self-serving distraction he uses to hide many of his political shortcomings.

For Khama the fight is used to drive home his mantra of victimhood.

We have two adults with a Peter Pan syndrome. They simply do not want to grow up.

They see nothing wrong showcasing their emotionally immature behaviour in public.

As a result the country has become more polarized and more fractious.

One is a president and holds all the keys to the levers of power, patronage and largesse.

Many of the people cheering Masisi on are hangers-on, desperate not to annoy him and find themselves in his wrong books which alone could condemn them to be banished from the honeypot.

And the other is a former president and a very powerful tribal leader. He is thus custodian of that which the tribe perceives as its own – rightly or wrongly. It’s a case of my chief, my king – right or wrong.

The people cheering Khama on are to a greater extent tribal bigots.

Other than  that they were the biggest beneficiaries of his presidency,

Masisi supporters are wholly convinced that Khama is out not only to sabotage Masisi but also topple him from the presidency, including by force.

Khama supporters are convinced that Masisi is plotting to eliminate their man, obviously using the intelligence services.

It’s a vicious cycle.

There has to be a change of direction or else the country will sink.

Which by itself will be ironic because either man fancies himself the most patriotic citizen in the whole of the country.

All hope, all confidence and all optimism that the people so desperately need now have all gone out through the window.

It’s a phony war in the end. But the important thing now is that it has brought the country to an inflection point.

Not even the once sacrosanct judiciary has been spared.

Judges have lined up along the two fault lines – a reading of a recent series of cases clearly shows that.

It is not a case of the “law, is the, is the law.”

If anything it is proof that the law is an ass.

But Khama must be charged if has to be charged.

He has to do time the courts say so.

Or else the whole thing is political persecution. And we should all be worried if that happens.

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