Let Botswanans avoid me biko. The small country ensconced in the South African heartland now thinks it has achieved Omoyele Sowore’s slogan – revolution now and take it back in one fell swoop! The ungrateful nation has just sacked its founding party, throwing away its very amiable president, Mokgweetsi Masisi and the ruling Botswana Democratic Party, BDP, that has been ruling, not ruining the country for nearly six decades. Let that form of ingratitude sink in while you’re sipping your impure sachet of pure water as you read this.
The most painful aspect of that electoral tsunami is that the change was initiated by Botswana’s youths that constitute 64 per cent of the country’s population of 2.6 million people. Youths who know that they stand a chance to live up to 70 years in contrast to Nigeria’s life expectancy of 53.3 years. That’s not the only scary thing that the Botswana change that is distinct from APC’s difference between six and half a dozen has produced. The scariest thing is that these people elected a man by the curious name of Boko, yes Duma Gideon Boko. A name that’s likely to cause more than a stir if pronounced in any internally displaced persons’ camp in northern Nigeria or even a quiet market place.
Apparently, the new president does not know that his last name conjures a very negative meaning among Nigerians, otherwise he would have anglicised it like Nigerian youths. If you check social media, some Nigerian youths are so filled with self-hate that they have turned their expressive names into something that is likely to confuse their identity. I mean, if a Holarfhemmy Homowhummy sent you a friendship request on social media, you might think they were from the suburbs of Moscow and not Nigeria’s southwest.
Anyway, the Botswanan Boko is a 54-year-old lawyer turned politician. He led the Umbrella for Democratic Change, UDC, to secure a parliamentary landslide that sent the ancient BDP into the trashcan of Botswana’s political history. The UDC cleanly swept 36 of the 61 seats in the Botswanan Parliament, a clean majority that left former President Mokgweetsi Masisi with a paltry four seats.
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The second sacrilege that Mr Boko committed was to reward the youths with appointments that’s likely to make the apostles of Nigeria’s moribund not too young to run green with envy. This man has appointed a cabinet of newbies or rookies that’ll make a cabinet war-room look like a dainty classroom in any of Nigeria’s overpriced privately owned university lecture rooms. None of the ministers is above the age of 54.
The youngest, Lesego Chombo, a 26-year-old former beauty queen, is holding the portfolio of minister of youths, gender, culture and sports. The young lady is a lawyer, gender and social activist. If she had landed the foreign ministry, she would have been at home with our own Bianca Ojukwu who, at 56 is still younger than Agnes Basilia John-Guerrero, the 77-year-old Namibian minister of youths and sports. Now, who says that our own President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not foresighted?
Botswanan youths rejected the party that spiked inflation to 3.9 per cent compared to Nigeria’s tepid 33.95 per cent. We all know that Botswana’s economy dipped because of the global fall in the price of diamonds – Botswana’s own crude oil. Enemies of Botswana began making diamonds in laboratories thereby devaluing a mineral that is globally referred to as a woman’s best friend. Sadly, the youths didn’t go to their religious leaders to pray against it, they went to the polls to fight it.
Mr Boko’s election immediately dropped Botswana’s inflation rate down to 1.6 per cent prompting him to announce a wage increase that pushed the minimum wage to $300, up from $100 or 4,000 Botswanan pula. Our gratitude goes to the government of President Tinubu for pushing monthly earnings to $46. Botswana’s gross domestic product per capita was recorded at $7, 250 in 2023 as against the giant of Africa’s $1, 621.
It is shameful that children of the independent party thought nothing of embracing the parochial voting cleavages that helps Nigerian old guards recycle themselves in power or replace themselves with their own children. Botswana’s election recorded no violence, no ballot snatching and no closure of borders and criminalisation of the movement of goods and services. Now is that an election? The pictures from Gaborone showed supporters of the old and new patting each other in the back during and after the polls like one big happy family.
Nigerians reading this should console themselves with the fact that Botswana’s population is a mere 2.6 million, a little lower than Ekiti State. This means that the whole essence of this writing is probably not worth the ink and the paper on which it is printed. No Nigerian politrician should lose sleep over a revolution looming at any time. The fervent glue of ethno-religious cleavages always work to make Naija youths eternally vote their oppressor elders. People should just calm down and if they walk past an IDP camp, not pronounce that Boko has won.
Celebrity Yahaya Bello
I don’t remember the person that coined the prayer – let my enemies live long to see what I will become. I am now certain they have Kogi’s white chicken in mind. After weeks of theatrics from the stage of the group Eternally Frolicking with Corrupt Comedians, EFCC, a rising megastar, has revealed himself.
Former Kogi Governor Yahaya Bello appeared last week in a trendy kaftan, a colourful cap, well-shorn cheeks revealing a smile that will make Olympic gold medalists burn with envy.
His appearance at an Abuja court almost shocked the nation as he was arrested after surrendering himself. He was immediately arraigned on a slew of charges that did nothing to wipe the smirk off his cherubic face. The last time anyone saw an accused beam with such a toothpaste smile was when the revered Ishola Oyenusi was tied to the stakes for execution.
It was not the trial itself that could have shocked the nation whose nerves are eternally numb; it was the heroic reception accorded him in the courtroom. Despite the short notice that prevented him from informing his lawyers that he was to be arraigned, nothing could calm the ecstatic fans smitten by Stockholm syndrome coming to see their hero. Those who got a handshake have vowed not to wash or eat with their hands until he is walking free again.
The trial judge had to take a break to enable the star to savour his unwaning status before returning to the business of ruling on his bail application. This unprecedented crowd has not been seen in court trials since ancient Israelis loudly asked for the release of Barrabas, a known bandit, in the place of a revolutionary chap named Jesus who spent the greater part of his life berating the corrupt political and religious leaders of his time. It is incredible to see history repeat itself in Abuja nearly 7,000 kilometers from that iconic trial. As they say, history does repeat itself first as a fact, then as farce. May Yahaya Bello’s popularity never wane.
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