01 Jul 2021

The clock gradually gravitates towards midday and the warm sun permeating Parliament Gardens in Gaborone offers a brief respite from the winter chill associated with the month of July.

As dignitaries, among them President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi, First Lady Neo Masisi, former president Dr Festus Mogae, current and former members of cabinet prepare to leave after a ceremony commemorating the centenary of Botswana’s founding president Sir Seretse Khama’s birth, two senior figures from the post-independence civil service engage in a jovial chat.

The two, Ambassador Joseph Legwaila, former Botswana’s permanent representative to the UN and Mr Lebang Mpotokwane, the first Motswana private secretary to Sir Seretse Khama, were kind enough to allow an interruption and grant an interview to share their memories of the country’s founding president.

“He was a kind-hearted man.  You could easily forget that he was born into royalty as the paramount chief of the Bangwato, the grandson of Khama the Great. He was humble and treated everyone the same,” recalls Ambassador Legwaila.

For his part, Mr Mpotokwane says, “He was full of jokes, enjoying the company of those people who worked with him. If you found him with his staff, you would easily notice how effortlessly he mingled and was down to earth”.

Mr Mpotokwane recalls a time when he and his wife were invited to State House for dinner by the then President and wife, Lady Ruth Khama.  

“It was just the four of us. We had a good meal, with very nice, tasty meat. Only towards the end did he ask me, “do you know what that meat is?” to which I responded in the negative.

He then told me it was phofu (common eland), my totem, which according to tradition I was not supposed to eat. That was Sir Seretse Khama, full of humour, wanting to find out my reaction,” says Mr Mpotokwane.

He added that Sir Seretse Khama was fond of eating Mophane worms or phane (edible caterpillar).

After the brief chat, the two senior citizens join others in the direction of their vehicles, leaving behind wreaths laid at the foot of Sir Seretse Khama’s statue as well as a hundred lit candles, a good five decades after having first worked with the founding president. Ends