Letter to Seretse: Batswana uninspired, sad at 55

The glorious days when Gobe Matenge and the 1976 10th Anniversary Independence Celebrations Unit (TACU), transformed what was considered deplorable social and professional attitudes of Batswana into positive and desirable behaviours, is all gone.

It is not that we have gone back to the early 1970s' deplorable habit of fighting and pushing each other over food, no. Matenge had long stopped that. But 55 years later, the national feeling of Boipuso is all doom and gloom. There is no ox roasting or samp and ginger to celebrate. There are no events, no football matches, no dikhwaere and no movement. This is the second year that Botswana does not celebrate Independence Day due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been a hard and challenging 18 months of the State of Emergency under Edison Masisi’s son, Mokgweetsi. We have lost great sons and daughters of the nation due to this pandemic.