Long live the King, long live Mogomela

Such words were relevant when taking into account the fact that he was an ailing president. Seretse dominated the news headlines on radio and the two newspapers that existed at the time in Mmegi and Daily News. He was often off sick and would dash out of the country for medical attention.

When as children we were made to recite “long live the President” everyday, we knew it was in honour of Seretse, our founding president. And when Ketumile Masire took over in July 1980, all of a sudden all the recitations came to a halt. I remember asking one of my teachers why we were no longer required to sing the recitation and her answer was simple, “we will no longer sing that because Masire is not sick.”