Delivering a watershed speech in Ghana just over two years ago, the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, said Africa does not need strong men, only strong institutions.
While setting the tone for the future, the loaded statement by Obama succinctly captured how the African continent had over the years fell under the spell of dictatorial leadership who, instead of promoting and broadening civil participation, instead went on the rampage to literally obliterate social institutions and put themselves forward as indispensable.
Such leaders made it a point to totally blur the line and differences between themselves and the state.
There is no point in trying to give examples of such leaders as that would lead us to filling this entire space with the names of such failed leaders.
What is important, however, especially for a country like Botswana is to emphasise how lucky we have been that since independence, our leaders chose a different direction.
While their counterparts elsewhere put themselves above the state or at least equal to it, for the good measure and from early on, our leaders spent inordinate lengths of time and resources building public institutions that have over the years served the people of this country really well.
We will be foolhardy if we were to say we have been wholly successful in achieving what have no doubt been lofty goals as set out for ourselves and mapped out by our founding fathers.
There have been many letdowns and disappointments along the way.
But, by and large, we have been successful.
There have been many challenges along the way ÔÇô at times such challenges seemed insurmountable.
But as a nation we always made headway.
In every aspect of it, it has been work in progress.
Recognition must go to Botswana’s earlier generations, who almost seamlessly managed to maneuver and negotiate their ways through what were no doubt very difficult and turbulent epochs ÔÇô punctuated by international anxiety, not to mention outright hostile regimes in many countries with which we shared borders.
It no doubt took real visionary leadership for people like Seretse Khama and Ketumile Masire to have stayed the course and insisted on what they believed was right at a time when odds were so heavily tilted against them. It was not easy.
But because they were right, Khama and Masire prevailed.
It’s time, as a nation, we took a break and recognized the strength of the men and women who laid what has since been a strong foundation of democracy that has stood the test of time which is today’s Botswana.
Today’s generation of leaders also has to play their part, else Botswana will falter.
What is important is to recognize that there is no going back.
In recognizing the successes of such men and women who made a generation of Seretse, Masire and later Festus Mogae, we should always remember that top of their agenda was to build strong public institutions that served all of this country’s citizens.
They did so by staying true and honest in accepting their weaknesses as people while also engendering and celebrating their strengths ÔÇô top of which was the spirit of national unity.
Building strong public institutions is as important today as it was in the early 1960s when most of Africa was just emerging from colonialism and imperialism.
For most of Africa the gains of democratic progress that were so much discernible in the 1990s seem to be all ebbing away. All of a sudden and before our eyes we see lots of gains made over the years being reversed.
It is sad to say it, but it would seem like for some African countries there is a loss of faith in the efficacy of democracy.
As Botswana, we must strive to once again be an exception.
Just as Botswana held steadfast and insisted on multi-party democracy when everyone else opted to go for a single party dictatorship in the 1960s, it is our hope that Batswana will collectively, notwithstanding their known political and ethnic differences, endeavour to agree that their country comes first.
Botswana of today faces greater and more intricate problems ÔÇô economically, politically, social and, as we all know, health-wise.
If not properly addressed the challenges we face today risk reversing the huge gains we made over the years.
As a country we need to continue working at strengthening our public institutions.
It is only when our institutions are strong that they will withstand the turbulent winds we are going through.
It is only when our institutions are strong that the public will continue to have faith in them.
It is only when the people have faith in their public institutions that such institutions will be credible as to inspire public confidence.
The recent spate of criminal charges laid against some of our country’s top leadership should be an opportunity for us to reflect as a nation on whether or not we have strong enough institutions that should take us into the future.
Whatever our differences, we should never doubt the efficacy, least of all the credibility of our public institutions.
If we agree as a people that our institutions may be lacking but are still credible, then it is all in order that we may celebrate, while also looking around just where it is that we need to further strengthen these very tools that have taken us this far.
In whatever we do it is important that we avoid personalizing our public discourse.
But then not personalizing public discourse is only possible when there is no vacuum space.
To avoid a vacuum it is imperative that at all time the space is filled by public institutions. We should never fall into the trap of substituting our public institutions with people.
In the words of the United States President we should look up to creating strong institutions, not strong men.
