Moswaane: Swayed by dearth to alter lives :: Mmegi Online

For Ignatius Moswaane, maverick Francistown-West legislator, inspiration from his two role models, the late pinups Sir Seretse Khama and Tshelang Masisi, including abject poverty that had gripped his Sefhare-based family, cemented his affection for politics quite early in his lifetime in an endeavour to find solutions to people’s troubles. Writes Mmegi Staffer RYDER GABATHUSE

Moswaane has a popular moniker, ‘Timmy’, borrowed from a character in an American soap opera, Passions, because of his loquacious disposition while a councillor at the Francistown City Council. He confesses that when he landed in Francistown in 1984 from Sefhare village in Tswapong South, he and his family were diametrically battered by abject poverty to the core. He relocated to Francistown in search of opportunities to quench the effects of deprivation in his family.

Later in 1987, at only 20 years of age, he obtained membership of the then ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in Francistown, which would later heighten to activism in1999. He has been a Francistowner since, and politics has been his second nature. The only time he is out of Francistown is on occasion of duty in Gaborone at both Parliament and Cabinet duties. Monarch location has been his permanent address since he landed in Francistown in 1984.