To the egocentric UDC leaders who are failing the people
Dear UDC Leadership
Comrades, I just want to know how you sleep every day knowing that while you scream and shout emancipation of the masses from the prickly clutches of CAVA’s incorrigible misrule, you are actually selling a whole nation of Botswana a pie in the sky. Just how do you hope to inspire hope and confidence in the suffering people of this country when you cannot resolve small matters of divergence in thought? Seeing the things that have been unfolding within your organisation of late has unfortunately made me lose hope that you can ever take over and lead this country. Ke gore lo petty; you have let your egos take charge of your thinking and reasoning power, and you behave as if this country owes you something very big.
The obstinate bulls that you are, your endless fights for God-knows-what, have only succeeded in leaving the proverbial grass bruised – the ordinary people who had so much hope in your promise of a Botswana Utopia are losing trust in your egocentric selves. Ke gore in no way do you differ with that self-exiled narcissist whose trademark characteristic has always been to think of himself first in whatever he does, with the people he claimed to serve just being some means and tools towards his self-serving interests. With the childish conduct you display every day, as well as the iconic failure you show at simple tasks of conflict resolution, what hope can the masses have in you to handle the intricacies of the state machinery and preside over a whole nation? In fact, I shudder to think what this country would have become had the ruling party not rigged the 2019 elections. Perhaps we should be thankful after all, that the elections were rigged as it now shows that it was for the good of this nation. Your pronounced failure at leadership within the UDC right now is indicative of the monstrous problems the people of Botswana would be grappling with right now under your stewardship. Surely the end of Animal Farm would have come earlier for this country. I expect all of you to have read that fable by Eric Arthur Blair, the chap who went by the pseudonym George Orwell. When I say with you the end of that story would have come earlier, I am referring to that famous last sentence of the novel: “The creatures outside looked from man to pig, from pig to man, and from man to pig again, but already, it was impossible to say which was which.” A story of a sad ending to the revolution – a hoax sold to the downtrodden, where our people right now would already be wondering who was better between the UDC and the BDP. For those of you who have not come across that story, let me share the briefest summary with comparisons to the situation we are faced with right now. It is a story of farm animals that were ill-treated or mismanaged by humans - their owners. Among the animals were the seemingly cleverer pigs who gave the rest of the animals hope for a better future. The pigs eventually led the animal revolt against Man – humans – and took charge of the farm. The animals were free from the tyranny of Man and now were led in their freedom by the pigs. Owaii, soon the pigs were fighting among themselves, with the eventual exile of one pig called Snowball, who had in fact, fought even harder to see the backs of the repressive humans from the farm. In no time the pigs were actually scheming with other humans to control the rest of the animals. The pigs saw themselves as natural leaders with the monopoly of knowledge and wisdom, so much that any divergent views from the other animals were suppressed. In no time, the new relationship between the pigs and humans saw a number of other animals from the farm being sold by the pigs – to the humans! Thus, in the end, the rest of the animals were wondering who between the pigs and humans treated them better. Gentlemen and ladies in the leadership of the UDC, you are the pigs! The rest of us the masses are the animals who were sold a dummy of good governance and leadership. As things stand with the UDC right now, if elections were not rigged, we the poor creatures outside – the ordinary folk in Botswana - could be wondering who between the UDC and BDP has been the better devil. We could similarly be looking from BDP to UDC, from UDC to BDP, and from BDP to UDC again, unable to say which is which. Lona e bile lo worse you have started fighting even before lo tsaa puso. Re ka bo re le ba ga mang? You guys are just failing the hopeful masses with your appalling leadership. Yes, the biggest problem with UDC is the failure of leadership. Given the leaders’ intolerance of one another; the backstabbing and smear campaign shenanigans taking place within what was once deemed ‘the people’s project,’ how do the people continue to place the massive responsibility of leading this country on leaders like you? If you fight amongst yourselves and fail to simply agree to disagree and compromise on small and straightforward things such as ‘democracy’ and 'governance' within the small space that is the UDC, how on earth do we move on with our heads held high and noses in the air, telling the world that in you we have a government in waiting? Kana ruling a whole country is such a massive undertaking. Already in the UDC we see bo Snowball being sent packing as you guys fight to prove who is the wiser and rightful leader. Lo ipitsa boNatural Leader and bo democracy champions while your actions prove you to be anything but! Go rata go lwela maemo mo ga lona go tlile go re bolaa banna. Kante lo loilwe ke mang for you to be always starting fights every time we near a general election year? This UDC has over the years experienced this thing that has become a predictable pattern where some of its leaders are purged just when elections approach. When the voters punish you for this immaturity you turn around and cry RIGGING! What rigging? Lo nyatsa batlhophi lona and lo tsaa gore Batswana ga ba botlhale. At the rate things are going, we are again headed for another election year where we will again say the ruling party rigged elections. Yet the rigging has already started right within the UDC as it also happened in 2018 with the purging of boPilane, Ndaba, Mmolotsi, Mangole, and the rest. And you thought people were not watching? Like the pigs in Animal Farm who betrayed the other animals by dining with humans, you too betrayed the people’s trust when you, among others of your hypocrisies, went back to entertain the very 'demon' that motivated the formation of the people’s project, and you thought the same people were not watching? Batho ba botlhale, and they could see that it was purely for selfish reasons that your eyeballs had rolled from seeing a demon to seeing a darling of convenience. They punished you for your self-serving decisions and you conveniently shifted blame to rigging. Foolish cheats are these CAVA guys to rig elections in some constituencies and fail to rig in especially, their strongholds! Continue with this immature behaviour within the circus you call a coalition and we shall again be chasing after trucks to conceal our shame of failing to win voter confidence. You guys need to introspect and revisit your vows towards the people you claim to care about. You must grow some balls and rise to tackle your differences eyeball to eyeball towards arresting the bigger picture. Otherwise we will see you for just any political demagogue who lures the voter through a false promise of heavenly life only to care for his stomach once given political power. And yes, with all the egocentric nonsense you guys are displaying right now, you are just that – another batch of political scams who lie their way to power only to enrich themselves and those closer by blood or by association. For everyone else, it is every man for himself. Lona ko go dimo koo lo busy lo a lwa, le lwela ditlontlokwane le maemo while your voters look up to you to save them from the social and economic doldrums they find themselves in. If you are incapable of conflict resolution for a small entity such as the UDC, then phatlallang once, because then you can’t deal with the bigger problems bedeviling the country once you are in power. It is for this reason that people will continue to say there is still no alternative. Imagine the poor voter having to choose only between the corruption and ineptitude of the BDP on the one hand, and the immaturity and greed of a polarised and undemocratic UDC on the other. Re tshabele kae tota?
And then, unfortunately, there are your cheerleaders – gatwe go Baiphatlakanyi, maFearFokol le Ditimamolelo. Good-for-nothings whose only role is to shout ‘Two legs bad, four legs good’ like the clueless sheep in Animal Farm. And here we are not just talking about some school dropouts who are enchanted to party membership by a carton of ShakeShake or plateful of Thululu – we are talking about men and women with PhDs and degrees of different levels but who can’t reason beyond their blind worship for their reckless and selfish leaders. These are actually the most dangerous pieces in this jigsaw of political demagoguery – the very people we expect to hold you, their leaders, to account. Yet they would rather shout, “Ba mo tshwere satan.... Re Mogobagoba... Ba mo tshwarisitse penalty....UDC or Nothing... O tlaa sala ka sekgapha sa phathi...” all such buffoonery that misleads you, the leaders, into thinking you are some gods. But then who wins in the end? As in 2014? As in 2019? As shall be in 2024? Itseeng stock boComrade before it’s too late, or else lo phatlalleng while there is time to allow us to have more choices in 2024. Ke bua le lona ka lorato. Tlholang le Modimo.
Yours with love,
Joe-Brown.