Khama threatens political Armageddon
Former President Ian Khama has taken a swipe at President Mokgweetsi Masisi on accusation made against him. Khama has vowed to spill more beans on the standoff with Masisi in the coming days.
He said in dealing with the issues, he is still bound by the Oath of Secrecy that he swore to, therefore cannot discuss Cabinet Minutes or Procedures except in clarifying inaccuracies, untruths and gross misrepresentation as has happened in this case.
“Although Masisi ranked fourth in the list of candidates suggested to me by the BDP caucus, I had made up my mind on him ahead of stronger contenders and despite a spirited Cabinet revolt against him.
“This was my decision and mine alone. His colleagues protested and warned me in his presence, as did several Senior Public officers separately including some who remain in government today, that Masisi was not a fit and proper person to be President.
“They believed that he lacked maturity and statesmanship, he was too casual and not renowned for integrity, and that he was a divisive character who did not respect public officers”, Khama revealed in a statement on Wednesday in response to Masisi’ utterances.
According to Khama, it is his observation that Masisi has either suffered a cruel loss of memory in most if not all of the allegations he is levelling at him possibly due to mental fatigue or breakdown, or he “has chosen to forget facts as known to him and I, and those that were in Cabinet and Senior Public Service positions during my Presidency.”
Khama indicated that incidentally, Masisi made similar claims and accusations in the run up to the 2019 general elections as he is doing now on the eve of the 2024 general elections.
“From his comfort zone and youthful exuberance, he has now chosen to throw scorpions, toyed with the Oath of Secrecy as an established principle of good governance, twisted the facts and invented stories that he knows never happened”, Khama lashed adding that Masisi would be well advised to realise that the constitutional provision of immunity from prosecution assumes integrity and honesty on the part of a sitting President.
“As a measure of his inability to resist being untruthful, who is not aware of Masisi’s tendency to get into material contradictions of ‘bolope and bolatswa thipa’, caught on video saying it and then trying to deny it when he contemplated his prospects for 2019; and his false claim of ever having offered me his resignation while he was my Vice President.
“Who is not aware of Masisi’s penchant for foul language even when he addresses people older than him; who is not aware of Masisi’s disdain for Labour Unions that ultimately led to the 2011 Public Sector Strike – when he and his officials advised me to not meet the Labour Unions when I wanted to as they felt that I would be compromising the work of the Bargaining Council”, Khama said.
The former president stated that he never chose any group of elders to favour him. The second team of Satar Dada, Charles Tibone, Ambassador Legwaila Legwaila, and Daniel Kwelagobe came to him on their own, and that he invited his Chief Executive, Mogomotsi Kaboeamodimo to join him and hear what they had to say.
According to Khama, the team said they had come to seek his return to the BDP as in their view the party was or is in disarray due to his separation from it and his campaigning against it and the significant loss of the Central District vote that will get wider in 2024.
He said they met several times until they gave up, not on him, but on Masisi whom they said was making himself unavailable to them.
'I did not expel them,' Khama said, adding that they abandoned the effort on their own.
Khama further pointed out that in exasperation, one of them coined the phrase “but we cannot clap with one hand” in reference to failing to get Masisi to make himself available to them.
Khama revealed that in the coming days he will talk about the “tribalistic remarks directed at Bangwato and aspersions on his uncles and his status as Kgosikgolo ya Bangwato; ridiculing former Cabinet Ministers and embarrassing the BDP; speculation about my wanting to return to the Presidency via the Botswana Patriotic Front; alleged US$4 million and one million of unnamed currency, pledges of donations to the BDP; the decision to close the BCL mine; the 2011 Public Sector Strike; Banyana Farms and Tauotona lodge; and that aborted flight to Mozambique.
Rest assured these are serious issues on which we will leave no stone unturned, and make no mistake the political Armageddon will arrive.”