The 'ruthless' pragmatism

LAWRENCE OOKEDITSE
Correspondent | Tuesday August 19, 2008 00:00

 

One perceives a sense of capitulation that never was present before in the defiant, diminutive politician. Our first encounter was back at the University of Botswana while I was a second year politics student.

With the Mass-BNF facing possible annihilation at the hands of the Botswana Democratic Party surrogate, GS-26, Ramaotwana made a comeback to student politics, taking on the mature, Lazarus Lekgoanyane, in one of the most interesting duels he has ever been engaged in. 

A cartoonist drawing on the eve of the election depicted him, in his trademark spectacles, finishing the race triumphant with Lekgoanyane panting behind followed by Dithapelo 'Stix' Keorapetse of the BCP and the maverick, Nkwalili Nkosana, a Themba Joina copycat of sorts who fancied himself as a revolutionary of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) holding rallies with two guards clad in military fatigues by his side. He came a distant last. The cartoonist was spot on. Thus he became the sole representative of the BNF in the student council of 2004-2005, sparking talk that he would be ousted the following day after winning the election. 'Ga ba kake ba kgona Nelson', I remember Tina Kaisara, a Mass-BNF well wisher back then defiantly telling how he would neutralise - alone as he was - the entire GS-26 cabinet. He stayed the course and steered the SRC.

'Viva student power viva! Faatshe ka bagateledi, faatshe!' I vividly recall him chanting over a petition submitted to Professor Bojosi Otlhogile, who seemed a little shaky as the mob of students stood by their leader's side. That was in the summer of 2004. He had just made a comeback to the student representative council presidency. His taste for revolutionary politics was hard to miss, waging a campaign yet again in early 2005 to oppose the deportation of reputed University of Botswana scholar, Kenneth Good.

Having lived his teenage and early adult years in politics, and in a constant struggle for and against power which he fully and willingly accepted, it came as a surprise, though not entirely astonishing to many when he announced he was quitting politics for the Attorney General's Chambers for 'peace of mind away from political gossip and character assassination'. 

Not a surprise because we know history harbours many fatigued, battle wary men and women who once savoured the acrid smell of blood and gunpowder and believed they had enough of the madness of battle. Given the chaotic order characterising the BNF at the moment, he too can be said to be a battle wary warrior. But the character that evolved over the years, having learnt many things, would not permit him total capitulation. It came as a surprise since revolutionaries are known for their love for political skirmishes, always coming out of political tussles with a sense of satisfaction that only they can really make sense of. Like Lenin, Stalin, Guevara, Castro and Mao. To them, victory seems to be somewhere in effort but not the actual result of a cause, Otherwise, how does one explain the energy to go on even after rigorous challenges seen by the ordinary citizens to be but a waste of time and effort? In fact, at one point his interference is said to have led to MASS-BNF walking out of an electioneering pact with the BCP' University of Botswana Congress for Democracy, going it alone only to lose all the seats to GS-26 BDP at UB, a thing many students condemned. The year 1970 began with the world's attention firmly on the Nigerian Civil war, with Biafra forces under General Ojukwu capitulating on January 12 and formally surrendering to General Yakubu Gowon to cease the war.

In Rhodesia it was the year the 'Rhodesians' formally severed ties with Britain, declaring themselves a racially segregated state. It is the same year the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty came into effect. In the same year, Edward Heath became British Prime Minister while Richard Nixon lowered the voting age in the United States to 18. The Soyuz 9, a Soviet Union two-man spacecraft is launched while in Argentina on June 8 a military junta takes over.

It was hardly a year of political rest. For rock enthusiasts, that year brought the last studio performance of the British band, The Beatles. The same year, on April 10, Paul McCartney was to announce that The Beatles had disbanded. 

Throughout the year, for Lido Ramaotwana the most important thing on her mind must have been not the political turmoil of the Cold War but the child she was carrying.  September 7, 1970 in world history marks the day when an anti-war rally was held at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, while fighting broke out between Arab guerillas and government forces in Amman, Jordan.

'I remember on the Sunday I went to the borehole to water the cattle and quickly returned, ground my sorghum and took some rest. The following day, a Monday, I had him. We named him Ramaotwana after his grandfather who was a church bishop,' says Mother. He was to christen himself Nelson.

Born Ramaotwana Ramaotwana on 7 September 1970 at Marobela, a tiny dusty dot of a village somewhere in northeast Botswana, the Zion Christian Church member was away from the political scene at birth. Unlike the Ntime, Saleshando, Dingake and Khama families, he was at birth detached from politics.

He acquired his political tastes along the way, opting not for the Botswana People's Party, the Pan-African movement, but instead for the more revolutionary Botswana National Front, the party that had something of a grip on him, surviving two major break ups in 1998 when the Botswana Congress Party was formed and in 2003-04 when the National Democratic Front was born, but showing unwavering commitment to BNF ideals, he stayed on.

A defiant personality and bull like tenacity helped him survive several challenges to the Botswana National Front. Being of a peasant upbringing, he held in disdain and contempt the individualist nature of the capitalist order. Such tenacity is the result of his moulding as a young boy whose family had to relocate from Marobela to Semitwe because their ploughing fields became sandy and lost fertility.

'He was an intelligent boy. When he was young he would go to the goats' barn and identify to us which kid was male. At 12 he would go down to the manual borehole and single-handedly water all the cattle,' Lido Ramaotwana recalls. Many villagers told the young boy's father, Uda Ramaotwana, they were surprised at the boy's intelligence. To date, a collection of axes, cups, shovels he won as a student, a straight 'A' student, still litter the Ramaotwana household.

The 'boy' later rose to lead the University of Botswana SRC, leading some of the most crippling class boycotts in the history of the school. He earned himself the reputation of a 'strike-happy' leader, not a bad tag among the students. 

'He introduced us to hard hitting politics. He simply took the administration head on. At one point the school had to close and we were made to sign the 'Nkomati accord' which took away many things we had hoped for, Martin Dingake remembers. Nkomati was a non-aggression treaty signed between the apartheid South Africa and Mozambique government in 1984. The papers the students had to sign to re-enter the university were dubbed thus to pacify the administration. The losses arising were never quite blamed on the slick politician.

The 4th of 11 children and the first born of the boys had to learn the ropes quickly and he was up to the challenge. Establishing a 'village record' he began ploughing the family fields as a young boy.

He was never to forget his background as he still has the 'last word' on family matters, according to his mother, Lido. The leadership roles he took up at a young age were to be replicated when he became a student politician, inspiring many others along the way as he created foes.

'He always believed in 'we' instead of 'I'', Martin Dingake, a BCP activist who schooled with him at the University of Botswana says.

'I admired his commitment to politics and I told him that when he retired even though I was his political adversary'.

Dingake was not so surprised when he quit because from what he read in the papers he was 'frustrated' at the non-redemption of the 'Moupo lobby group', which he left upon realising that it 'had no direction'. 

Despite being an avid revolutionary, the politics of the Front can take a turn that can scare away even the most baked of revolutionaries.

Revered Dr Kenneth Koma, the founder of the giant that almost destroyed him in the end himself felt wary at one point. Otsweletse Moupo defined in some quarters as 'a fire-eating communist who laughs in the face of danger' himself seems to be gathering a little too much grey hair in the days when the skirmishes in the party are gathering pace.

Nelson, being a skilled manipulatorshould have seen the writing on the wall. The road to political glory is hardly one can refuse, but the road to the dustbin of political obituaries is littered with the tracks of men and women who were dragged, kicking and screaming, to their political graves.

Ramaotwana is a proven political thinker and schemer. At a rally, a facilitator while at the University of Botswana once described him as 'a political animal, a great African politician whose name is read along with those of Mandela, Sobukwe and Samora Machel'.

A slight exaggeration it may be, but it points to Ramaotwana's profile. Such a man, hardly anyone could ever think would leave a secure city council eat and a chance at another shot at the mayoral position for an insecure parliamentary seat. In fact, the writing was on the wall.

If he contested the seat he would lose it. His party is in turmoil. And he is up against possibly the best young Turks in politics in the country at the moment. One is the incumbent parliamentarian whom people can hardly be said to have had enough of. The other is in the party that lost that election by just over 90 votes.

He is a player in politics, a game in which one needs to always have their shin pads on lest break a leg. 'In light of the concern of the BNF stakeholders, the BNFYL Central Committee resolved that Comrade President Moupo be kindly requested to consider stepping down voluntarily from the presidency of the BNF in a dignified, graceful, peaceful and honourable manner befitting the person of his stature,' Ramaotwana told a press conference a few weeks ago despite having been a 'staunch ally' of Moupo.

Such is his pragmatism. In the light of new developments he does not shy away from making a decision, even a shocking one. But again, is that not the general thrust of all revolutionaries? In fact, Ramaotwana slept and woke up in the middle of coups and counter coups. Before the ballot ink confirming him as councillor for Village Ward had dried, Ramaotwana moved a motion of no confidence in the city clerk for insubordination, and to some extent incompetence, as many resolutions were not being acted upon.
The motion was not adopted with then Mayor and later political adversary Harry Mothei calling him to order. 

Fresh with ideas and the revolutionary cheek to help the underclass, he strongly moved and debated a motion to refund vendors who were wrongly charged P200-P500 for operating without licences. The motion was adopted and so was the beginning of the journey to the top post at the council.

Having become the Mayor of Gaborone, several councillors were linked to ouster plots against him in 2005, allegations that he refuted. Some of theme allegedly messed things up so there could be reason to kick him out commenting: 'They will write everything they think will sell their papers. I always complain to the office of the city clerk if something is not well and all the information to the media will come from that office'. 

Perhaps he was being a little naive for hardly a year later the knives were out. The year 2007 was to begin badly with most of his supporters, including party President Moupo, on January 24th defying a caucus that decided that Harry Mothei should not wrestle Ramaotwana for the Mayoral post.  In the tense atmosphere at the Gaborone City Council Chambers, Ramaotwana lost to Mothei by 14 to 18 votes, Mothei receiving a good number of his votes from BDP councillors. With a bit of salt and displeasure, the diminutive politician like a spiritually-guided deposed chief declared, 'I knew this was going to happen. We were 14 in the caucus yesterday and I got 13 votes including the extra vote of the BCP councillor who promised us the vote'.

Politicians fall into many temptations and Ramaotwana was no exception. At times such temptations test one's character and resolve. They may lead to distrust. Hardly before the wounds were healed, another bruising battle began. This time it was against 'mentor' and 'speech writer', Batlhalefi Tutwane. Tutwane, in a private conversation back then told me, 'This guy told me he would not contest the presidency and assured me of his support. I cannot believe that he will now contest', Tutwane said, evidently feeling betrayed. Such was the disappointment that Tutwane was famously quoted in some quarters as having labelled Ramaotwana a 'Comrade Judas'. His claim that 'the people asked him to stand' earned him the tag of a 'ruthless' politician from Tutwane's sympathisers.

While not a messiah, the warrior retains an urge to forgive.
'If you are itching for revenge all the time you will never forgive those who wronged you. And in revenge there is only destruction. The only thing that those who want revenge will achieve is destroy the BNF,' he once said after apologising to Kathleen Letshabo, a comrade who had stood against Moupo for the party presidency. He showed maturity, distancing his person from identification with certain factions and in a witty tone lambasting.

'Taking tea with people does not mean that you belong to their faction.
Once before I was attending an event in Gaborone and I accepted an offer of a drink from a councillor in Letshabo's faction. That did not mean that I belong to that faction. After all, comradeship is about sharing'.

Kumbulani William of the Botswana People's Party and Ramaotwana's supervisor when he was an Operations Officer with Standard Bank sees Ramaotwana as a hard worker who has no problem with authority.

'He is a fine person who listens but he always spoke his mind and wanted to be listened to. To him ideas had to come from both sides and I had no problem with it,' he says.

On this note, it seems the Attorney General's Chambers will not have their hands full trying to contain him. But still, one wonders about the words of a Ramaotwana campaign spin-doctor at UB: 'The only way to stop Nelson from politics is to either kill him or kill politics'. Only time will how prophetic those words were.