A ride, a breakfast with Gaolathe and Mmolotsi
Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Wednesday August 30, 2017 17:15
By the hotel reception, wearing his trademark suit, is Mmolotsi requesting for a toothbrush from the reception. He is chatting warmly with everyone, and as I chip in, he obliges. I quickly suggest to him we could walk down the road to fetch the toothbrush. No sweat he obliges. We talk about the current BMD troubles. Mmolotsi breaks the issue down. It is not a simple issue. It is a mirage.
We are hitting the road together, loads of chats. This man is easygoing than I ever thought. Then the icing on the cake! We are driving out of the hotel in the MP’s car, when he notices BMD president, Gaolathe’s car in the parking lot, and he phones him, to check if he will join him for breakfast. After a while comes MP Gaolathe, likewise, clad in a suit and tie. He opts not to use his car and gets into our car with us. Now, I have the luck of literally sitting in the company of the two protagonists.
Gaolathe greets us. He speaks very softly. Too soft and too low. It is my first time to experience this. Mmolotsi seems not bothered by the president’s tone as they exchange morning pleasantries. I realise the president’s health is just fine from the way Mmolotsi is exchanging banter with him in high spirits.
Mmolotsi asks Gaolathe if he has ever seen “comrade” Nehemiah Modubule since the Bobonong debacle. Gaolathe replies, “Ee, nkile ka mmona. Nkile ka mmona ka bo ka mo tshwara ka letsogo, a itumela thata”, We burst into feats of laughter, as Mmolotsi recalls a Mmegi news article in which Modubule was quoted speaking glowingly about Gaolathe.
Mmolotsi talks about how he has not been able to shake hands or greet MP Gilbert Mangole due to the current BMD imbroglio. Unpretentious, Mmolotsi recalls a recent chance face-to-face stumbling on the path of Mangole. “I was with the president (referring to Gaolathe), but the president greeted him and shook hands with him. Nna I didn’t have the courage to do that tota. I just ignored him. I’m sure he (Mangole) did not expect you to extend that courtesy to him; he looked a troubled man,” Mmolotsi says, addressing Gaolathe.
I think my rare experience with the two BMD legends has come to its end when I separate with them, as I head for the breakfast. They get busy greeting every hotel staff religiously. I have already picked a table and am in the middle of my plate when, as if from nowhere, Gaolathe follows me to my table. With his softest, humblest voice, invites me to come and join him and Mmolotsi at the table they have picked at the far end of the restaurant. Simply, he has come to take me from my table to sit at the same table with him and Mmolotsi.
The style with which he chooses to do this act, is deeply humbling and amazing. I immediately instruct the waitress to carry my dishes there.
A few minutes later, that soft voice would be at the Botswana Sectors of Educators’ Trade Union (BOSETU) congress podium narrating a poetically woven address to the delegates, titled, ‘I’m happy’.
The congress receives his address with heavy emotions, openly showing how sorry they feel for him. A victim of political machinations standing in front of them, they could not hold their emotions.
Back to my earlier moments with Mmolotsi. I am in his car as we wait for the president to arrive. Mmolotsi tells me the BMD problems are more complex, and deeper than people imagine. According to him there is influence from outside the country, influence from political parties locally. There is also influence of the money power from Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU), and influence from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). Then there is the Sidney Pilane factor, and the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DIS), amongst others.
Mmolotsi says BOPEU’s tussle for influence in the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) has seen political activists (he mentions names) rely heavily on BOPEU for business opportunities and party funding, (he mentions names). In some instances, some opposition activists have been employed by BOPEU. At BMD, Wynter swears that BOPEU is funding the other faction. He says the logistical success of the BMD congress in Bobonong was largely due to BOPEU money. According to him, they have information that about P250,000 from BOPEU went into the Bobonong event.
Mmolotsi says there is also funding from outside the country, and there are strong rumours that some opposition activists are suddenly getting amazingly fat tenders from government, something which they [BMD] are still investigating.
Mmolotsi says he has never hidden it from the DIS director general, Isaac Kgosi that he suspects strongly that his operatives are at play in the BMD fiasco. “I phone him any time to tell him my worries about these interferences, but he always denies any involvement in the BMD problems, but I tell him.” Mmolotsi says the Bobonong violence was deliberately encouraged and allowed by the police, DIS and vice president Mokgweetsi Masisi’s government as an opportunity to tarnish the UDC name on Botswana Television, and social media platforms. To demonstrate his point, Mmolotsi says ahead of the Bobonong congress, he had met with Kgosi, and police commissioner Keabetswe Makgophe, to request them to mobilise their forces and set up camp at the venue since violence would erupt.
“The atmosphere said it all. We knew what was going to happen there and we alerted the police and even suggested ways to prevent that violence from happening. But the police were nowhere to be found. It took over an hour of the violent attacks before they showed up at the scene. I kept on phoning them, both the police commissioner and the DIS, expressing my disappointment. Isaac Kgosi had assured me that he would be there in person, but when I checked again, he told me he had a change of strategy but I was informed that some of the violent characters there looked like DIS agents. I told Kgosi that, that I hear your people are now staging violence at our congress.”
Why Mmolotsi detests Pilane
Mmolotsi takes me down memory lane to the early formation of the BMD, with Pilane part of that interim committee. Mmolotsi recalls how the BMD project nearly collapsed as they prepared to hold their inaugural congress. He says: “We needed to elect delegates to the congress, but we had no structures with two months to go. We got legal advice that we could elect delegates through general meetings instead of branch congresses, but Pilane refused this recommendation and insisted we hold branch congresses.
We tried to reason with him that, look, we had failed to set up structures in 12 months. How would it be possible to accomplish that in less than two months? But Sidney could not be swayed. I had to bow before that man to beg him to let us. When we went to the inaugural congress and beat him out of the BMD committee, it was a sigh of relief really. We thought our problems were gone”.
Mmolotsi feels strongly that with Pilane, there will be no compromise in the BMD in the near future, because if he does not agree with the majority, then there is no movement in the impasse. “I’m sure the likes of Modubule and Mangole are regretting their decisions to work with him. I hear he rules them with an iron rod, and they are all now scared of him.”
Mmolotsi also shares with me some near death experiences alleged to be the order of the day in that team’s meetings.
Like a member who was once allegedly threatened with a bullet for showing signs of weakness ahead of the Bobonong event.
I ask him about his fearless character. Mmolotsi laughs and quickly goes straight to the point, “O kare motho a sa ntshabe, nna ke bo ke mo tshaba. Ao, e tla a bo e le go mo ipolaisa”.