Finding Bad Jesus Of Mmopane
Thalefang Charles | Monday February 12, 2018 16:47
Seventeen years ago, Onneetse Ngakane, an orphan from Mmopane, dropped out of school at Ledumadumane Junior Secondary Sechool while doing Form 3 because she fell pregnant.
She was 16-years-old when she discovered that her boyfriend, Boiki Dibotelo, an unemployed resident of Mmopane, who was 22 years at the time, had impregnated her.
She birthed a son and named him Ditiro Ngakane. Last year Ditiro, at the same age as his mother when she had him, quit school, the same one his mother dropped out of, and became a criminal. Today he is a notorious gang leader known as Jesus.
Jesus shot to notoriety last week when he was paraded by Botswana Television (Btv) Thursday night news together with his gang of young boys.
In the Btv news, Banneetse Keakile, station commander of the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport (SSKIA) Police Station, labelled Jesus as the most dangerous and leader of the pack despite his stunted physique.
Keakile said Jesus, together with his gang, are currently on bail and facing a string of violent crimes including, four robberies and two house breakings.
But hardly 24 hours after the news bulletin, Jesus surprisingly was caught red-handed after breaking into a house in Block 7 on Friday afternoon.
Dumped baby
Boiki and Ditiro’s relationship was already on the rocks when the Ditiro was born. According to Boiki (the father), three months after the baby was born Onneetse (the mother) dumped the baby with the father and left without a trace.
The Monitor team visited Boiki at his homestead in Mmopane, west of Gaborone and he gladly narrated the upbringing of is ‘lost son’ (and awkwardly The Voice team was also present).
Boiki is an unemployed 40-year-old man who still stays with his mother. He is semi- disabled (walks on crutches) and talks with a peculiar speech impairment that makes him sound like he has pains in the throat when speaking.
Clean-shaven and bearing a ZCC star badge, Boiki resisted pictures, but said he was free to open up and answer all the journalists’ questions.
Listening in was his inebriated mother who kept uncouthly interjecting, together with his sister and her small children – Boiki’s nephews and nieces.
Boiki claimed that Onneetse just vanished after giving him a three month-old baby.
“We were at a wedding preparation for my cousin and she just asked, ‘Can you hold the baby for me’ and she left and never returned,” said Boiki.
He said, “The baby cried all night and I had to buy milk and try to feed him. We went out looking for Onneetse, but never found her. She did not sleep at her home that day, and I was stuck with the small baby”.
Boiki said since that day he raised the child alone until he started school. He added that Ditiro only learnt of his mother when he was doing Standard 7.
The Monitor then tracked Ditiro’s mother Onneetse and found her at Senkeletse Shopping Complex in Mmopane where she was lazily downing some cold ones with her friends.
She appeared disturbed, with her piercing eyes and worried face like one in trouble. Onneetse is 34 years-old and a mother of five- Ditiro being the first-born. She ekes out a living from hairdressing.
We found a small shade outside the Senkeletse complex for an interview and she called in her friend Mmabotswana Mmipi to stand with her through it.
She said they had just returned from Princess Marina where they were told that Ditiro had been discharged that morning and taken in by the police.
Ditiro suffered injuries after the Friday incident where he was attacked by a mob of Block 7 residents following his house-breaking escapade gone-wrong in the area.
Onneetse, however, disputes the account of her baby daddy on her alleged dumping of the three-month-old child. She said it was only after eight months that Boiki’s family took the baby, adding that it was an agreed arrangement for the father to stay with the baby.
“Those who understand his upbringing are at his father’s place because they took him while he was a toddler. I only lived with him after he started primary school,” said Onneetse.
Queried on why she let her small baby stay elsewhere, Onneetse said she was just an orphan and school dropout who did not have any support to raise the baby.
Obedient boy
At home the boy is called by his nickname ‘Ngoto’, but his full names are Ditiro Godfrey Ngakane. His father said, “When he is at home, Ngoto is an obedient child. He cooks and is well-mannered like other children.”
Onneetse together with her friend, Mmabotswana, both agreed that Ngoto had always been an obedient child.
“The problem is his friends. Ngoto chose wrong friends and they introduced him to bad things,” said Onneetse. She decried the entire Mmopane saying there were a lot of bad elements in the village that end up corrupting good children.
After obtaining B in Standard 7, Ngoto was admitted at Ledumadumane in Mogodisthane and his father said that was where he started to clearly pronounce his delinquent status.
With two places to stay, (either at his mother’s or father’s) Ngoto decided to use that to his advantage. He would skip classes, or stay away from home and claim that he was at either of his parents’ places.
At an early age, Ngoto proved to be a skillful football player. He spent more time with his mates playing football and caught the eye of some grown-ups who followed European football.
That is when Ngoto was named Jesús Navas after the Spanish dribbling winger who used to play for Manchester City in England.
He went out and inked himself tattoos on his hands with his new name and the father said one time he even put the name on his hairstyle.
Last week, SSKIA police commander introduced him during the Btv news with the Jesus nickname, and his frowning face became an instant social media trend.
Parents give up
Jesus quit school last year after many attempts to discipline him failed. Both his parents said they have been summoned to school so many times that they ended up giving up on their boy. They both gave long narrations of the crimes he committed and how they tried to tell him to stop.
“I had long given up on him,” said the father.
The mother, although she too admitted giving up on her child, said she tried all to provide for the child but failed. She said everything that he asked for they tried to provide.
“When he says he wants a sneaker, we go out and provide. My sister in Mahalapye has been helping me provide for this child to try to discourage him to go and look for such things elsewhere, but still we failed,” said the mother.
When he was incarcerated at the Moshupa Boys Prison, both his parents wanted him to stay longer, hoping he would emerge rehabilitated. Boiki said he did not want him to get bail, but the mother decided to go and help him get bail without his consent.
Onneetse explained how he helped him get bail saying. “I also did not want him to get out. I wanted him to learn that his actions were really bad, but I was advised that if I leave him there for a long time, prison would completely corrupt his mind and he would become a hardened criminal. He is my son and what he is doing hurts me too, but I don’t know what to do now.”