Ratholo bogosi crisis persists
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Wednesday June 28, 2017 17:15
The feud on who should be crowned the village’s headman started after the death of Kgosi Molefhe Mangadi in 2013. After his death, the village did not have a leader for five years until Ditshotlo was appointed last month.
In an interview with Mmegi, Samuel Olaotse who is the Direkileng family spokesperson said the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development’s decision to crown Ditshotlo as their leader, turning a blind eye on the three nominees that the villagers chose to be the village’s leader, aggrieved the villagers.
“Ditshotlo was never amongst the people nominated to lead our village. He is not even from Ratholo. Even though his surname is Mangadi, he is not related to the late Kgosi Molefhe Mangadi.
We were never consulted when the Bamangwato tribal administration decided to crown him.
Even though we had our three nominees for Ratholo bogosi, we were never given feedback on whom the office chose to appoint the village Kgosi depending on the investigations from both parties,” he said.
Olaotse emphasised that they could not accept Kgosi Ditshotlo as their leader because he does not originate from their village and was clueless of their history.
He said the community even told the officials and Dikgosi that crowned Ditshotlo that they did not approved his crowning because they did not know or saw him until his crowning.
“When we went to enquire why he was crowned without being consulted, we were surprised to see our names in some minutes showing that indeed there was a Kgotla meeting where together with the villagers, we both agreed that Ditshotlo can lead us instead of the three nominees. We suspect foul play.
We feel we have been defrauded. We suspect forgery and corruption because we don’t know if the commission was sent by the government or not,” he said.
He further explained that bogosi belonged to boo-rra Direkileng because they started the village.
He said they led the village for the past five generations but when Albert Direkileng’s father Tshupelo Direkileng died in 1999, the family was told that his son could not take over his crown as the government needed someone who was educated to lead the community.
That is when Kgosi Molefhe, who was a policeman at the time, was chosen to stand-in for Albert.
Olaotse explained that after Molefhe’s death, the Direkileng family felt it was high time they retained their chieftaincy because at the time the late Kgosi Raditanka Ntebele told the community that the rightful heir should be selected to lead them.
He said that unfortunately Kgosi Ntebele died before crowning Albert. Kgosi Sediegeng Kgamane then sent a delegation to the village where they asked the community to select a member of the community they felt was eligible for the crown. He said that was when things took a different turn when each ward wanted its representative to lead the community.
“Both the nominees’ uncles were called forward but efforts to agree on who should lead the community ran futile as we could not agree on one person who must take over the crown.
All the nominees’ names were forwarded to the Tribal Administration Office and on the next meeting, the community chose Albert to succeed his father,” he said.
Olaotse added that all arrangements were made for Albert to be crowned.
He said as a result, Albert left his job knowing that he was going to be crowned the Kgosi only to be surprised when Ditshotlo was crowned as the Ratholo leader last month.
“Albert is now depending on us to take care of him and his family because he left his job knowing that he will be crowned Kgosi. This is heartbreaking,” he said.