As Vice President, Slumber Tsogwane didn’t think there was anything wrong with President Mokgweetsi Masisi publicly insulting other people. A Botswana-flag lapel pin adorning his suit jacket, he once took to the floor of parliament to justify why his principal could describe the antics of De Beers’ negotiators with an explosive onomatopoeia that mimics the repetitive sound of a heavily-laden tractor flatulently wiggling its way up a particularly steep, potholed incline. Digitally reincarnated as an (uncharacteristically) easy-going social-media star with 185 000 Facebook followers, a cumulative total of over three million views, two online pet names (‘Chipi’ and ‘Sdala’) as well as a packed social-butterfly calendar, the former VP has dramatically readjusted his views on public use of insulting language.
In celebrating that viewership milestone, Tsogwane posted the following statement to his Facebook page: ‘I extend my sincere gratitude to each of you for engaging with me in a manner that is respectful, thoughtful, and meaningful. It is through such engagement that dialogue becomes impactful and progress becomes possible. Let us continue to be mindful of the words we choose, ensuring they build rather than break, unite rather than divide. When used responsibly, this platform is not just a space for expression, but a powerful tool for connection, growth, and shared purpose. Re Batswana.’ The Setswana sign-off is followed by a single Botswana-flag emoji.
While he has been consistent in his use of Botswana-flag iconography, Tsogwane has been inconsistent with regard to application of public decorum standards. Some four years ago, the Leader of the Opposition, Dumelang Saleshando, implicitly advocated for respectful, thoughtful, and meaningful engagement through a thematic parliamentary question. The question was themed ‘Use of Inappropriate or Uncouth Language by the President and Uttering of False Statements.’ Over an extended period of time and in dramatic departure from presidential norm, Masisi had said a mouthful, some of it blatantly classist condescension.
In condemning widespread tendency to beg, the former president hypothesised the scenario of an elderly person begging for fencing wire at a kgotla meeting: Masisi actual words were ‘Le mogolo wa maloba o tla a bo a tsena ko kgotleng a re ‘nywee tautona ke batla terata.’ [Even an elderly person can say ‘I want a wire fence roll.’] ‘Nywee-nywee’ is an ethno-cultural buffer term that combines hyperbole and onomatopoeia and is used to mock.
Referencing a childhood in which he had set traps for birds, Masisi said he did the same thing with De Beers during the diamond sales agreement negotiators and managed to ensnare its team. The Setswana he used was ‘ba kile ba a re peperepepere.’ The statement doesn’t yield to a sensible literal translation but substantively means that De Beers’ negotiators unsuccessfully tried all sorts of trickery. ‘Peperepepere’ imitates the sound of farting and, in Setswana, can be used figuratively to describe the act of someone engaging in elaborate but ultimately unsuccessful verbal or non-verbal effort.
Addressing a Botswana Democratic Party political rally during the Covid period, Masisi said that after members of the opposition (baganetsi) got the Covid vaccine, their buttocks swelled up – ‘ba tika lerago.’ This expression is typically used on the poor, mostly by the well-off. Masisi’s ba-tika-lerago remark didn’t separate the young from the old, leaders from supporters or those who criticised him from those who never did. On the basis of the latter, Francistown South MP, Wynter Mmolotsi would state, in parliament, that ‘bagolo ba a ngongorega gore tautona ga a ka ke a ba raya a re ba tika lerago.’ He meant that elderly people in the opposition were complaining about what the then president had said about them.
Masisi tendency to casually insult people in public got as extreme as to attract scholarly attention from the University of Botswana. Last year, Southern Journal for Contemporary History published an academic paper by Christian John Makgala, Boga Thura Manatsha and Batlang Seabo that pairs Masisi with Khama. Titled ‘Shooting from the Hip: Critical Discourse Analysis of Setswana Language Spoken by ‘Deculturalised’ Presidents Ian Khama and Mokgweetsi Masisi, Botswana’, the paper argues that public use of Setswana language by both former presidents ‘has contravened the ethos of botho (civility), thereby dividing public opinion.’
In response to Saleshando’s question, Tsogwane (as the Leader of the House) said that the Masisi had only used figures of speech (‘dipapisapuo, manatetshapuo’ – metaphors, euphemisms) through which ordinary language is manipulated to create a literary effect. He did indeed use the term ‘euphemism’ which is used when one wants to say something in an understated manner, often to avoid unpleasant or embarrassing topics. His broad-brush response lumped the offensive remarks together and he defended their use by saying that they had been ‘taken out of context.’
When challenged on the appropriateness of the specific remarks Masisi had used, the future Chipi either mischaracterised the context, equivocated, engaged in preposterous semantic gymnastics or took cheap, out-of-context shots at MPs. He falsely asserted that Masisi was referring to opposition politicians who didn’t want to be vaccinated when he (Masisi) had not actually made such distinction. When Mmolotsi challenged Tsogwane on peperepepere, he sought to weasel out by detracting to snide remarks about how the ruling Botswana Democratic Party helped the now ‘pompous’ Mmolotsi become an MP: ‘Yo go tweng Mmolotsi yo re mo thusitseng ka maemo a e leng gore gompieno a a mmelahatsa.’ The context was not very clear but Mmolotsi first came to parliament as a BDP member and later defected to the opposition with his seat.
In fairness to him, the ordinarily mild-mannered Tsogwane had been publicly pressured into this unenviable position. Earlier in his term as vice president, a systematic, if stealth campaign that was mostly executed through mainstream and social media, was launched to force him to ‘defend’ Masisi. Where it would have been easier to defend policies, he ended up defending inappropriate conduct by his principal. While Tsogwane now sees virtue in respectful words, he has never recanted his statement about the phantom aestheticism of offensive words, especially those used by someone – like a state president, who is at the nerve centre of public life and should model appropriate conduct. On such basis, future generations will learn, from the Hansard of the Botswana Parliament, that a former vice president once declared that ‘go tika lerago’, ‘nywee-nywee’, ‘peperepepere’ are perfect examples of aesthetically-enhanced Setswana. That is part of Tsogwane’s legacy as a political leader.