Celebrate Our Heroes In Life As In Death

Monitor Editor | Tuesday May 2, 2017 11:56

Last week Saturday, we lost rapper, radio and television personality, Mpho Vincent Tiro, popularly known as Steez, to a freak road accident.

On Friday, the nation learnt with shock after football was robbed of a rare gem in rising Township Rollers attacking midfielder, Goafone Tiro, who collapsed during the team’s training. Tiro emerged from far-flung Gulubane to rise and play for one of the country’s biggest clubs.

While the nation was still nursing the fresh wounds, death struck another cruel blow, with news filtering from South Africa that professional boxer, Herbert Nkabiti had passed on after his bout at Carnival City.

A passionate boxer, Nkabiti had travelled to the neighbouring country for a welterweight contest. The trio played important role in entertaining the nation and proved one can be famous and still remain humble and focused. It is therefore only right that we give them due respect and celebrate their contribution in the music and sport industries.

Typical of us Batswana, the death of these heroes as many others before them, has us singing them praises. Why we cannot recognise and tell people of their sterling work when they are alive is puzzling. Recognitionnot just in work but also to invest in those who raise our flag.

We can’t wait for someone to die and for his music or play it on radio. We need to invest in buying CDs, going to shows and playing and requesting the music we love from our radio stations. We need to sponsor sports stars and pay them as brand ambassadors.

Let us celebrate our players by going to the matches in large numbers, buy merchandise branded in their names instead of buying the same after they leave us.

We should honour those who worked hard to grow our sports. People like Nkabiti joined boxing when it was still very difficult and pushed past being an amateur to be a professional boxer. His achievements surely inspired many to follow his path and we see boxing growing. Such icons should be honoured and their track record documented to inspire others.

Today, we posthumously celebrate their contribution and we urge the nation to pay fitting tribute to our heroes.