Botswana Independence Day supplement

But the new government saw the possibilities in this tract of forest, away from Mafikeng, South Africa where the Bechuanaland capital was at first, and away the rest of the established centres and various capitals of ethnic groupings found across the country.

The place would become the seat of the government of Botswana, where the expression of the new state's sovereignity was to be seen and lived.How Gaborone became Botswana's capital city is a metaphor for the new republic's new humble beginnings, making something out of nothing, marking the excitement of working towards achieving a new nationhood, untainted by ethnicity and many such prejudices that characterised the rest of newly independent states in Africa.