Everything being equal, as a nation, we are five years away from achieving the goals we have set ourselves in 2016 document.
That will be a time when, as a country, we would have been an independent republic for 50 years.
As times tick to that milestone, there are a few questions that we need to ask ourselves as a nation and people.
When that time comes, would Botswana be a prosperous, caring and compassionate one where citizens are not only proud of their identity but are economically empowered to meaningfully participate in the running of the economy whose control is vested in foreign hands? Are we going to see a Botswana where citizens are major players and drivers of the economy in the construction industry, the diamond industry, telecommunications, tourism and so forth?
These are not lame questions, but important issues that we have to grapple with as a people.
From reading Vision 2016, which is our national blueprint, it would appear like we have set ourselves very lofty and ambitious high targets.
There is nothing wrong with that.
The trouble though is when it becomes all the more apparent that we may never be able to realise those ambitions.
To reach those lofty ambitions, we need to put in place tools and instruments that will help us realize them.
In the absence of social cohesion, high educational levels and a lack of localization of skills, there is no way we can see Vision 2016 through.
In the face of a failure to diversify our economy there is no way we can become a proud nation.
Thus some of the commentators have started to say many of the ideals of Vision 2016 may be just a pie in the sky.
Over the last few years, Vision 2010 secretariat has held somewhat erratic reviews of the progress made by the Vision Council.
We learnt this week from the Minister of Foreign Affairs that Africa will not be able to realize a related milestone, the Millennium Development Goals.
For Botswana, Vision 2016 remains the most important goal that binds us together as a nation.
It gives a collective hope of what we aspire to be. We cannot afford to fail to realize its tenets.
The trouble though is that at the moment there appears to be no ownership of our Vision by the majority of the citizenry.
Even within among national leaders there is these days very little mention of the Vision.
It would appear that for some of them, the Vision has gone a Dodo’s way.
It is a matter of shock that even among some of our leaders, deep seated tribal prejudices still exist.
Thus a whole senior Minister of State finds nothing wrong in reminding casting aspersions on other people’s ethnic origins.
Even worse, we still have other minority groups in our midst that are denied basic education in their mother tongue at their crucial developmental stages.
We still have the ever growing disparities between the haves and the have-nots. We still have computer illiterate teachers in our schools even as we dream to turn our country into a regional internet technology hub. We still have a government which agonizes about calls for the declaration of assets and liabilities in the interests of transparency.
The traditional system where it took a village to raise a child has collapsed ever since we became independent. With our independence, we have employed methods that are foreign to our African-ness.
Our culture of Botho, which has for centuries been used to address our own social ills, has collapsed.
The fabrics that used to hold us together are no more.
And all these in the name of civilization. We shun our culture and embrace other peoples’.
As a nation, we must seriously take stock of what we set out to achieve in our Vision.
The government, as the main driver of this vision, will have to shoulder the blame for the failure of Botswana to realize it. The tragedy started when the government of the day started to use the Vision as an election winning manifesto.
That politicised the Vision and polarized the nation.
Those who could not associate with the ruling party found themselves also forced to disassociate with the Vision.
The truth though is that the Vision remains a unifying national tool.
We need to all rally around it.
Otherwise all effort to realize it would soon prove wasted time.
