A nation without honest history cannot demand accountability
correspondent | Monday February 16, 2026 08:56
There is a claim gaining currency in Botswana’s political discourse that must be confronted head-on: that the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) failed to develop the country over 58 years. This is not merely a flawed argument. It is a deliberate distortion of history (historical revisionism), deployed to manipulate the national psyche and lower expectations of the present while suspending accountability in the name of political change. To sustain this claim, one must first ignore facts. One must portray Botswana as a failed African state - a country that drifted aimlessly for nearly six decades and somehow, by sheer accident, emerged as an upper-middle-income economy.
One must persuade Batswana to doubt their own lived experience, to look down upon their collective achievement, and to feel embarrassed rather than proud of their national story. In doing so, we are invited to believe that we were either blind, foolish, or easily deceived for 58 years. This is not a political critique. It is national self-loathing disguised as progressivism. Botswana’s founding president, Sir Seretse Khama, warned against precisely this danger. He reminded Batswana that “a nation without a past is like a people without a soul”, and insisted that Botswana had a history to be proud of, one that must be reclaimed and written by Batswana themselves. That warning was not about romanticising tradition. It was about safeguarding the truth. To erase Botswana’s post-independence development record is to amputate our national soul for short-term political convenience. At independence in 1966, Botswana was among the poorest countries in the world. There were fewer than 30 university graduates. Infrastructure was virtually non-existent. The national budget was skeletal and dependent on external aid.
There was no industrial base, no skilled workforce, and no institutional capacity worth inheriting. This is not contested history. What followed, however, is equally uncontested by serious scholars. According to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), Botswana recorded some of the fastest sustained growth rates globally from the 1970s through the 1990s, averaging between 7 and 9 percent annually for long periods. Diamond revenues were not looted or recklessly consumed. They were deliberately invested in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and long-term savings. By the early 2000s, Botswana had attained upper-middle-income status, a distinction still recognised today. The World Health Organisation (WHO) documents dramatic improvements in life expectancy and healthcare access. Education expanded from a handful of secondary schools to a national university system, producing tens of thousands of graduates. Roads, hospitals, dams, regulatory institutions, and sovereign reserves were built deliberately and systematically. These are not opinions. They are facts, recorded by international institutions with no stake in Botswana’s domestic politics. To describe this trajectory as “failure” is not analytical courage. It is intellectual dishonesty. More troubling is the political purpose such dishonesty serves. By declaring the past an unbroken record of failure, today’s leadership positions itself not as accountable administrators but as historical redeemers. An untested administration is elevated to near-messianic status, not based on delivery, results, or economic transformation but on rhetoric, confidence, and performance. Fluency in English, assertiveness at the podium, and the appearance of omniscience are mistaken for competence. Criticism is dismissed as nostalgia. Questions are framed as sabotage. This is not new. History is littered with leaders who spoke brilliantly while governing poorly. None of this denies Botswana’s current challenges. Inequality remains high. Youth unemployment is alarming. Economic diversification has been slow and uneven. These problems demand urgent solutions. But it is precisely because the challenges are real that accountability cannot be postponed behind historical scapegoating. Failure to resolve every structural problem does not negate decades of development. Development is cumulative. It creates foundations, and those foundations impose responsibility on those who inherit them. By insisting that nothing before now worked, the present absolves itself of the obligation to perform. If everything were broken, then anything that breaks today can be excused. If the past was a disaster, then the present only needs to sound different, not be different. This is how democratic oversight dies quietly. Global experience reinforces the warning. In Argentina, governments repeatedly blamed historical mismanagement while compounding economic crises. In Venezuela, revolutionary rhetoric erased history and dismantled institutions. Across parts of post-liberation Africa, liberation credentials replaced performance until collapse followed. The pattern is always the same: discredit the past, deify the present, delay accountability.
Botswana is not immune. Sir Seretse Khama understood that national confidence is built on truth, not fantasy. He insisted that Batswana must write their own history, not to flatter themselves but to understand themselves. To now abandon that principle is to betray the very foundation of the Republic. A mature democracy must be capable of two things at once: acknowledging that Botswana’s post-independence development record is real, significant, and internationally recognised, and demanding that the current leadership deliver measurable progress now. These positions are not contradictory. They are inseparable. Blaming the past indefinitely may be politically expedient, but it is economically sterile. Roads are not built by speeches. Jobs are not created by narratives. Growth does not respond to charisma. According to the World Bank, Botswana’s challenge today is not recovering from failure but accelerating diversification, productivity, and inclusive growth - tasks that require competence, policy coherence, and execution. If Batswana allow history to be rewritten to protect the present, they will wake up one day stripped of both pride and power. History does not protect democracy. Citizens do. But only when they remember who they are, where they come from, and refuse to surrender truth for applause.