BDP NEMESIS DIES
Former Councillor Moeti Letsepe passes on at 104 Royal figure unhappy he was never honoured His BPP party mates nowhere to be found
Born on the first day of January 1919 in Magwadi ward, Mochudi, Letsepe was barely two-months shy of his 104th birthday when he succumbed. Strangely for a man of his age, he could still walk and see. In fact, he had just recently returned from a medical check-up at the local hospital with his son-in-law and was booked for an appointment with the doctor, which unfortunately he would not honour.
Family, friends, neighbours and acquaintances from near and far descended on the place Letsepe had called home for the longest time on his earthly sojourn, to bid him a fitting farewell this past Saturday 12th November.
Speakers at the funeral described him as a Botswana People’s Party (BPP) firebrand alongside the likes of Seame (Speaker) Difatlhwe and Motlhagodi.
When he stood to speak, Kgosi Segale Linchwe roused the mourners with the pan Afrikanist rallying slogan – ‘Lefatshe!’ to which the crowd would respond ‘La rona’ and then the speaker
would continue, ‘A e boe (Mayibuiye’ and the crowd would roar, ‘Afrika!’
Waxing nostalgic and reminiscing of the good old days, Segale recalled how Letsepe was the terror of the ultra-conservative ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in those days when Mochudi was the bastion of the BPP, and of how he would shame the BDP for mortgaging our land to the British.
Sadly, Segale lamented that this man, who served Botswana in its early days when the land was dry and the only means of economic livelihood was cattle rearing and growing crops, has been hard done by the current government, which has failed to honour him and his ilk. He was also disappointed that Letsepe’s fellow compatriots in the struggle – the BPP’s rank and file, especially the leadership, which has since relocated up north, was nowhere to be seen to bid this political pioneer farewell.
Conceding the monumental failure on the part of government, Councillor Basiki Lebekwe promised that he would try by all means to walk on Letsepe’s shoes. He said he was writing a book to document the legacies of all his predecessors and appealed to the community to help him with information.
At home and on the streets, Letsepe was a strict disciplinarian, a no-nonsense father who would not bat an eyelid in his resolve to gather children and adults alike to the straight and narrow. He was, in the words of every speaker at the funeral, the embodiment of the maxim, ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’!
This was attested to by one of his four remaining children out of the ten that he sired, Veronica Nkitso; and a representative of the grandchildren, Christinah Beluna Senyarelo and his neighbour, an elderly Rasetunka Moabi Thari, who had himself not escaped Letsepe’s wrath and fury!
Letsepe learned to read and write when he worked for the South African mines doing First Aid. On his return to Botswana he was employed as a Pumper by Water Affairs department. Aggrieved by the conditions of his people, Letsepe joined politics and was elected Councillor in 1974 under the BPP ticket.
According to his obituary he was joined in holy matrimony to his loving wife, Motswere Nku Letsepe in 1949. Sadly, she passed on in 1994.