2016 the year of fatal accidents
Staff Writer | Friday December 23, 2016 13:14
Most predominately, this year saw a rise in the number of fatal accidents. Even the Police Commissioner Keabetswe Makgophe recently spoke of the worrying numbers of road accident that have rocked the country. Makgophe confirmed that by November a total of 361 people had died due to road accidents.
Just this past week five people lost their lives in a road rage but the most horrific accident worth highlighting this year was when a mother, daughter and son lost their lives hours apart, 500km apart due to road accidents. The other accident happened here in Gaborone whilst the other happened near Chadibe Village in the northeast.
Perhaps topping the charts would be the hotly debated Sebina case, which dragged on for months even attracted the attention of the Office of the President. The controversy involved the then assistant minister of Education and Skills Development Fidelis Molao and councillor of the area Kemmonye Amon, who was at the centre of the saga for allegedly impregnating a school teenager girl. The case took another dimension when the laptop used to post the leaked conversation was linked to a political activist Motlhaleemang Moalosi. The case caused uproar countrywide leading to the formation of pressure groups such as ‘I shall not forget’ movement. The case would go down as one of the unresolved cases for 2016.
Another case to reflect on would be the missing 11-year-old boy whose body was exhumed with the help of his stepmother at Mankgodi hills early this year. The boy went missing for over a month after he was last seen leaving for school with his peers. After intense police investigations his stepmother was finally linked to the disappearance of the boy who then assisted the police in locating the buried body of the child. It was alleged that she committed the crime for ritual purposes.
The stepmother had been living with the boy and his father at their home in Block 3 and according to the father there was no bad blood between the two, but she left their relationship two days after the disappearance of the 11-year-old boy.
The case is however still before the Broadhurst magistrate court.As the year ended, Botswana was making headlines for deporting 'anti gay' pastor Steven Anderson, who had come into the country to open his branch in the capital, Gaborone. After a damming live radio interview on Gabz Fm with Reggie, the man found officers outside the building after an immediate instruction from President Ian Khama to detain, arrest and deport the man from the country.
This immediately made international headlines. Khama told reporters that he had ordered Anderson’s immediate deportation after the pastor said in an interview with a local radio station that gays and lesbians should be killed.