Marquette was a name given to Ketumile Joni Masire by his Uncle Rre Tom Kgopo. Joni however later shortened it to read Quett and he has been known as that for most of his life. Joni was born 86 years ago, four years younger than his BDP counter part another British Knighted Motswana, Sir Seretse Khama.
Masire and Seretse were both born in July and the two later teamed up to build what was later to become a successful artificial brand in Botswana’s political landscape ‘The Botswana Democratic Party’ (BDP). At the time of the party’s formation Masire served as its Secretary General and Khama became its President. The two were later to enjoy the leadership role of the country with Masire serving as vice president for 14 years. Unfortunately Seretse’s presidency was cut short by ill health and death in 1980. At the time of his death Seretse had only been in power for 14 years, much shorter than the African norm and expectation.
Masire comes from a humble background, a son of a peasant farmer from Motebejana Ward in Kanye. Joni Masire went to school at the age of 13 after having spent a considerable amount of his time at the cattle post looking after his father’s cattle as a herd boy. Unlike most of his peers at the time, Masire escaped the route of going to work on the South African mines and found his way into the classroom. In his memoirs ‘Very Brave or Very Foolish’, Masire claims that he was a genius and because of that, accelerated and completed his primary education in five years instead of seven.
That earned him a government scholarship to go and pursue post primary studies at the then prestigious Tiger Kloof Institute, which has as its alumni among others, Seretse Khama, Archie Mogwe, Kgosi Bathoen II and Motsamai Mpho. However, Joni Masire could not make it beyond Tiger Kloof despite having been awarded a generous government scholarship. He did not make it to Fort Hare, where he had wanted to study BSc degree in Agriculture. Tiger Kloof marked the end of the road for his schooling where he graduated only with a teaching certificate in 1949.
After graduating as a teacher from Tiger Kloof, Joni Masire joined the teaching profession and later served as head master of Kanye’s Seepapitso Secondary School for five years. From teaching he found his way into journalism and later politics a profession he held much longer than his first love ‘Farming??????’ Masire has had an illustrious career and his CV is highly decorated. In 1957 Masire earned a Master Farmers Certificate and established himself as one of the territory’s leading agriculturalists. Masire’s first love has always been farming, and it comes as no surprise that the face of the 86 year old passionate farmer appears on billboards such as the one on Mobuto Drive advertising seed products. The lists of his awards are endless.
Masire met Seretse in the 1960s and they together helped build and transform the BDP. That marked the beginning of a rosy relationship, culminating into Joni’s dis-respect for his Chief, Kgosi Bathoen II. Joni Masire could not contain his excitement, his new found relationship with the BDP God father (Seretse), clouded his judgment so much so that he even thought Bathoen II was jealous of him. He sidelined Bathoen, arrogantly belittled him and ditched him for Seretse Khama. To him Bathoen II was a nonentity; a mere village chief of the Bangwaketse and together with Seretse Khama went on a deliberate crusade to ensure that they crumbled the institution of Bogosi. Khama did not bother about Chieftaincy either even though he himself was a chief of the Bangwato. His main interest was to hold a higher political office where his superintendent role over chiefs would be felt.
He abused them, conned them and used his educational qualifications, and Bangwato royalty to manipulate them. The Chiefs acted in good faith in dealing with him and they thought he was one of them and that he was with them. It was a relationship based on goodwill; they were however, fooled and hoodwinked. Khama’s project was beyond, with a primary motive of establishing and building an empire for himself. Khama was hungry for power and he had in him some dictatorial tendencies. He saw himself as someone above the chiefs and his main mission was to establish a pseudo feudal state (if you like). His foot prints can be seen even in today’s regime.
In his memoirs in which self-praise is overdone – Very Brave or Very Foolish ‘Joni Masire’ bravely claims that ‘Bathoen was very upset when BDP won the elections of 1965. In fact, the shock wave came when he had seen the eagerness with which people turned up for elections. He clearly miscalculated and failed to read the winds of change in the people’s hearts……Chief Bathoen remained bitter, and his behavior became very sulky, eccentric and negative.
He tried hard to go back on some of the matters of constitutional and legislative change that we had already agreed upon……; however, Chief Bathoen made a series of political remarks about our new government. He said we had wanted independence, but we had not achieved independence, since Gaborone was only for whites. He said Batswana were only allowed to stay at Old Naledi (the shanty town to the south), and that the constitutional talks had been a sham.
Over time the late President quietly tried to persuade Chief Bathoen that he was pursuing the wrong course, but B2’s hostility continued. Seretse finally decided it would be more effective if told the chief in the Kanye kgotla that he was obstructing progress of our democracy’.
The Gazette News paper of the 2nd March 2011 carried a story showcasing how Seretse and Masire unilaterally adopted the constitution document without the consent of Batswana, opposition political parties and Dikgosi. According to the Gazette News paper, Dikgosi were not party to the constitutional talks that were held in Marlborough House (UK) on the eve of independence on the 15th February 1966. The two parties, i.e. Dikgosi and Bechuanaland opposition parties had in September 1965, presented a proposal seeking for the postponement of constitutional discussions pending consultation with the British, Dikgosi and Botswana government with the mandate of taking Batswana’s views in oral and written form.
This was expected to address major issues such as what powers the tribes and Dikgosi would ultimately surrender to the central government and those that they would retain as autonomous entities. Extracts from the Bechuanaland opposition memorandum presented by Phillip Matante reads in part ‘The opposition in Bechuanaland Legislative Assembly is not at all opposed to the independence, as it will be recalled we demanded independency as early as 1961. This is when a fake document in the name of constitution was imposed upon the people of Bechuanaland without proper consultation. The British people deliberately endorsed that instrument and yet it was not acceptable to the people of Bechuanaland’. They feared the same thing would happen because in their view the people of Bechuanaland and Dikgosi have not been consulted on all important issues regarding the constitutional changes leading to attainment of independence. They further submitted that independence of a country was not a party issue, but a national issue that demanded consultation with the entire nation as well as Dikgosi.
For their part Dikgosi submitted that they were betrayed by Seretse and that the trust and confidence they had in him was misplaced. They believed that Seretse as a chief by tradition would enable him to understand the need for gradual transformation of their traditional ways. The Dikgosi explained that they wanted talks that would include all the interested parties and that the consensus reached would form the subject of the final constitution. However, despite all these submissions, Seretse Khama went ahead with the talks and ignored Dikgosi and opposition pleas (Ray Chamberlain ÔÇô Government record keeper).
From the foregoing discussion it is quite evident that the constitutional talks were indeed a sham. Just as Bathoen stated and contrary to Joni’s depiction in his memoirs they were a sham. Everything was hurriedly done in order to meet the demands, taste and expectation of Seretse and company. Tswana culture and custom of consultation was sidelined. The notion that a nation without culture is a lost nation was merely a rhetoric statement, a mere statement that would remind coconuts about their cultural backgrounds and place of origin in cocktail parties.
One is therefore, compelled to assume that the road to independence was driven by political pomposity, arrogance and coconut mentality – where everything white was supreme, even to this day everything white runs supreme. We have become a nation that shuns its own culture and to practice it in some instances is met with great hostility and hate. The root evil however, is in our constitution and Seretse and Masire are to blame. They are the chief architects of the constitutional mess the country is currently faced with.
Masire’s hate for Bathoen II clouded his judgment as he literally forgot ‘go re ke ngwana wa Motswana, oo goletseng kwa Morakeng a disa’. The constitution does not recognize the natives, their culture and custom. It is not even a shame to find someone holding a high political office struggling to speak the native’s language and yet claim is a Motswana. What a shame and an embarrassment. It does not come as surprise for certain individuals to be on the defensive when issues of constitutional reforms are raised and the response they give is clumsy, na├»ve and in extreme cases irritating. (If it aint broken why fix it?’).
Joni Masire was very smart in that, in his lust for a leadership position, he realized that the only way he could achieve his goal was to remain very loyal and close to Seretse. He had no choice but to become Seretse’s praise poet and apple polisher. He was calculative and his patience paid dividends in the long run. Joni Masire knew Seretse’s weaknesses, habits and health status. He had closely studied him and Joni himself did not take or consume alcohol. He did not even smoke. In 1965, Joni Masire had won the Bangwaketse South Constituency elections and the following year he became the new nation’s vice-president, serving under Seretse. Joni Masire however got a rude awakening in 1969 when Bathoen II contested the elections under the opposition Botswana National Front’s ticket, in the Ngwaketse South Constituency. Bathoen heavily defeated him hands so much so that Joni did not dare stand against Bathoen in the 1974 elections.
It must be noted that after losing the elections to Bathoen II in 1969, Joni’s political career was rescued and saved by Seretse Khama as he made it back to Parliament through the specially elected Member of Parliament dispensation.
For the past 45 years, Masire’s BDP has governed Botswana uninterrupted despite its arrogance and elitist outlook. Since 1966 it has continuously promoted perverse economic policies, which while impoverishing most of society, provide concentrated and significant benefits to few of the BDP elites and their close family members through the award of tenders.
*Thabo Lucas Seleke is a Lecturer of Public Policy in the Department of Political and Administrative Studies, University of Botswana
