21 May 2026

Resplendent in matching black tuxedos and bow tie outfits befitting the occasion, President Advocate Duma Boko and Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, Presidents of Botswana and South Africa respectively, took to the dance floor at Wednesday night’s State Banquet having toasted to strengthening their nation’s partnership with renewed vigour.

Almost exactly 40 years to the day the apartheid South African Defence Force attacked a complex in Mogoditshane, while simultaneously attacking Lusaka, Zambia and Harare, Zimbabwe in a May 19, 1986 triple raid on the Frontline States, Mr Ramaphosa and his country, no longer the regional pariah, were being feted by their neighbours.

Akin to a Cinderella transformed from a maidservant to a dazzling princess attending a royal ball, Mr Ramaphosa led his delegation, including a score of cabinet ministers, among them Messrs Gwede Mantashe, Ronald Lamola and Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, respectively ministers of Minerals and Petroleum Resources, International Relations and Electricity, to the state banquet at the Gaborone International Convention Centre.

“This not an ordinary State Visit. It is the coming together of brethren and sisters of the same family. We are one people born of the same soil and bound together by a shared history,” President Ramaphosa said.

Having paid tribute to ‘an illustrious African and global statesman,’ the recently deceased former President Dr Festus Mogae, ‘who came in the footsteps of a remarkable array of great Batswana leaders who have led a proud, resource people with glorious and heroic history’ Mr Ramaphosa pledged his country’s support to the current occupant of the State House.

“President Boko, we commend the vigour and the vision with which you are leading Botswana on a path of modernisation and toward a future of sustained development and prosperity. You can count on South Africa as a reliable neighbour, a friend and partner as you continue along the path of this journey.”

For his part, host President Boko said Botswana and South Africa’s relationship had been forged through history, strengthened through solidarity and sustained by a shared commitment to the advancement of the people of both nations.

Botswana and South Africa are not just bound by geography, but by common aspirations, and deep human connections. Our peoples share cultural, linguistic, familial, and economic ties that continue to unite us in enduring ways,” President Boko said.

Noting that the world is beset with an uncertain global landscape characterised by economic volatility, geopolitical tensions, pressures on food, water and energy security, as well as disruptions to global supply chains, and the continued impact of climate change, there was a need for the closer collaboration of neighbours like South Africa and Botswana, who shared values of democracy and commitment to multilateralism and territorial integrity.

“The relationship between Botswana and South Africa is, therefore, one of strategic importance. It is anchored in mutual respect, shared interests, and a common vision for a peaceful, prosperous, and integrated region. Above all, it is underpinned by the recognition that our destinies are inextricably linked,” President Boko stated.

Therefore, he said, the two states needed to use the occasion of the visit to strengthen collaboration and optimise the opportunities to expand trade, strengthen regional value chains, accelerate industrialisation and enhance infrastructure development and connectivity.

In his speech earlier, President Ramaphosa also pointed out that one of President Boko’s ministers, who was charged with chaperoning the South African statesman, had remarked in an informal chat during their car journey across Gaborone that Mahikeng, the South African North West province capital was once a part of what is now Botswana.

“We continue to experience the dynamism of the ties between our peoples forged by a common history, heritage and geography. The minister in the car as we were talking about our geography, said ‘by the way, President, Mahikeng was once very much a part of Botswana.’ Then I said ‘minister please! Let’s not talk about bygones, that we were not a responsible for,” President Ramaphosa said.

“But we share a common history that goes beyond our borders, that is a heritage for our two peoples.”

Indeed, history records that when the British proclaimed the Bechuanaland Protectorate in March 31 1885, territories such as Mahikeng, Vryburg and Kuruman now in the North West and Northern Cape South Africa were part of the protectorate, before the British divided the territory along the Molopo River, the areas to the south becoming a separate colony, ‘British Bechuanaland’ annexed to the Cape Colony in 1895 and thereafter the Union of South Africa at its foundation in 1910.

Even after the division, Mahikeng remained the capital of Bechuanaland Protectorate, until Gaborone was established in 1965 as the capital of a self-governing territory that gained full independence as the Republic of Botswana in 1966. ENDS