Assault on marriages: hallmark of a Presidential scoundrel

They recently buried the scoundrel. Flags fluttered at half-mast. From eyes half-glazed by booze tears trickled down chubby cheeks puffed up by our stolen wealth. This, I imagine, is what took place, because I was not there. I did not attend, nor did I watch on TV. The scene was “too ghastly to contemplate”.

Festus Mogae had accolades posthumously heaped on him. What I found particularly distressing was the credit he was given for battling the HIV pandemic in our country; all because he had gone to the International community with a begging bowl on our behalf and declared that AIDS was threatening to wipe us out. The International community generously responded and offered help.

What Festus Mogae did not tell the International community was his role in the way the disease spread around the country. It was at a time when Government was the main employer of the common man in our country. Mogae was Permanent Secretary to the President (PSP) and Head of the Civil Service. Married civil servants were punished by being transferred away from their spouses! Our country is roughly the size of France, and populated then by just a little over two million people. Some of these transfers separated spouses by well over five hundred (500) kilometres. I leave it to the imagination of the reader as to what ensued. Families were broken, divorces were filed WHILE THE MOST POWERFUL CIVIL SERVANT WORKED WITH HIS WIFE IN GABORONE. 

Recently, the Chief Justice revealed that there are more than two thousand (2000) divorces awaiting processing by the courts. I know of one of those two thousand divorces which has been waiting in the queue for twenty-seven (27) years, all because the lawyer who was engaged by one party to file the divorce was promoted to the position of JUDGE, and subsequent lawyers were either unwilling or unable to progress the divorce. This was vintage Festus Mogae: deploy one’s power to kabolola ditshoka (de-wax the ears) of those who dare say “we have rights that you swore to protect, scoundrel!”


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