Gudu is the hope BPP gave to the umbrella

Patricia Edwin | Friday June 27, 2014 16:32

 

He was not the only one to recognise this. When he graduated from Standard Seven he was tasked with the responsibility of being a class valedictorian. His teachers had confidence that he could do it and he did it with aplomb.

Asked who Richard Gudu is, the man who in Setswana would be described as ‘a person with a flamboyant aversion to morning dew’ because of his lanky physique, points to that day in 1970, when he stood before the class to woo his peers with his oratorical skills.

He says that was the day he realised he was no ordinary mortal though from then on, his life was pockmarked with trials and tribulations, which he surmounted with the ease of a true gladiator.

He never stopped aiming higher and achieved all success he could in life.

Gudu, a Botswana Peoples Party veteran, is contesting the Tati West constituency under the coalition ticket of the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC).

He is pitted in the October general elections against Reverend Biggie Butale of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and Dr Philip Bulawa of the Botswana Congress Party (BCP).

“I passed my Standard Seven with flying colours because I was very intelligent. On that day (of the valediction)  my teacher, who was also the head teacher at Masunga Primary School called me and told me that I would be speaking in the afternoon at the farewell party of Standard Sevens.

“I did not know what to do, but he told me that I could do it.

He even called other teachers to come and reassure me that I am capable. I did it,” he says.  One would expect that, after his exceptional performance in Standard Seven,  Gudu would have been on a one way ascendance – from primary to secondary school and on to tertiary.

That is the story of child prodigies who usually go on to become successful but with Gudu that is not the case. For Gudu, the day that he gave the speech was the last day he would ever set foot in a classroom.  He never made it to secondary school.

He passed Standard Seven with flying colours, got an admission letter from Shashe River Senior Secondary School, but his mother could not afford school fees, so he had to stay home.

“It was painful.  I remember one well known man in the village who came and asked my mother if she should give him the letter so that his child could go to school in my stead because she could not send me,” he says.  For the next two years he stayed home until he made a decision to go to Gaborone and find work.

“Mind you when I completed Standard Seven I was 15 years old and it was in 1970. I went to Gaborone to find a job and started to work in construction,” he says.

Gudu says his predicament propelled him to work hard to ensure that his younger siblings did not suffer the same fate of not getting secondary schooling..

“My brother who came after me passed and went to Mater Spei and I went against all odds to pay for his school fees and support him,” he says.

He was so determined to see to his brother’s future that on the day his brother was to pay school fees, he had to cross Motloutse River by foot on his way from Gaborone because the train he was on had been derailed.

“My mother and my brother were waiting for me in town. I knew, by hook or crook,  I had to arrive and give them money for school fees and uniforms.

I left the train there and  crossed the river that was so full- up to my waist- but I managed to arrive and pay the school fees,” he says.

Gudu went on to take care of their last-born brother’s schooling at Shashe River School.

“As I am speaking to you, both my brothers completed their secondary school education and even went abroad to the United Kingdom and Soviet Union respectively,” he says.

He also improved his life chances when he took up the Trade C and Trade B certificate in bricklaying.

In 1985, Gudu ventured into a new professional journey. He left the construction industry for hospitality.  “I joined Gaborone Sun in the maintenance department and I was sent on a three-year course to Johannesburg and on my return I was tasked with training other employees in case of fire and other emergencies,” he says.

After years with the hotel, the managing director of Sun International sent for him and told him that he was in the wrong department. The MD wanted to push him to Personnel and Training, Gudu says.  “He said that I should dispel any fears that I had of the position because they would train me.

They started sending me to do a lot of courses in South Africa and I was given an industrial attachment at Sun City and in Swaziland,” he says.

He says that he also studied in Grahamstown at Rhodes University and acquired his Diploma in Trainer Development.

He finally left Gaborone Sun in 1999 and joined active politics. But he was not new in this terrain.

“My first membership card in the Botswana Congress Party (BPP) was in 1977. I have held many positions as I have been in the youth league. I have served in the central committee and in the national executive committee both of the UDC and the BPP,” says Gudu.  He is fighting to represent Tati West because “the constituency has been stagnant for the past 10 years.  “It has been 10 years and nothing has happened in this constituency, no developments,” he says.

He adds that there are so many challenges to be addressed and they can be addressed by putting the BPP of the glory days of the late Phillip Matante back into Parliament.

Gudu has contested and lost the last two parliamentary elections to Charles Tibone of the BDP.

In 2004, Tibone who garnered 4,322 votes while Gudu came second with 2,824. In 2009, the margin narrowed between the two, with the MP getting 4,277 of Gudu’s 3,477. Now with a new BDP candidate, Butale, and with the backing of UDC partners, BMD and BNF, Gudu is hopeful of a win.

“I am standing again because I am not a quitter. There is a saying; ‘achievers cannot be quitters and quitters cannot be achievers’. As long as the people believe in me and the UDC says that I can do it, I will not quit,” he says.

Gudu says he can deliver and he has decided to sacrifice his life to stand for people rights.

“Botswana politics is all about sacrifice for the people and for the country. You cannot put a price on voters by buying them. That is why other candidates will win and go and stay in Gaborone because they have nothing to lose because they bought votes,” he stated.

Of great concern in the constituency is bad roads such as that of Tshesebe to Masunga and Mosojane-Mulambakwena.

Also of concern is the issue of children who walk long distances to junior secondary schools in the constituency.

“Tati West has 26 wards, 10 junior secondary schools and only one senior secondary school which absorbs students from all the junior secondary schools. That is one of the areas of concern for the UDC in that area,” he says.

Asked how he sees the upcoming general elections, he says that he has hope.

“If elections were coming tomorrow, I would say that I am going to win but with a few months left, you never know because people change and anything can happen.  “Things can change for the good or for the bad, but I am confident it will work out because people now understand that they cannot remove a failed BDP leadership and replace it with the same,” he says.

Gudu has been married for 17 years, and has two children from the union. He also has six children and three grand children from a previous marriage.

“I love family and I love my children and my grand children,” he says.