The Botswana Gazette has established that Jerry Chitube, the mysterious Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) National Youth Executive Committee (NYEC) Chairmanship contestant who was arrested by security agents shortly before the elections is not a Motswana and has been using a fake Omang card which does not exist in the national identity card database.
This has purportedly been one of the reasons for his deportation to Zambia.
The Botswana Gazette investigations which were corroborated by political followers of Chitube have uncovered that after his arrest, they (followers) were asked to confirm his nationality by security agents as there were suspicions that he was from Zambia and held a fake Omang card.
A source revealed that Chitube’s names in his Omang appeared as Jerry Chitube and provided the Omang number. According to another source at the immigration offices, the Omang number is invalid and does not exist in the country’s registration system.
Meanwhile bus owners are also fuming with anger claiming that Chitube convinced them to use their buses to ferry his voters to Masunga for the youth congress but he was arrested before it could be done.
“A bus owner in Jwaneng is owed P19, 500 for the buses we used to go to Masunga,” one of Chitube’s campaign team members claimed.
“They keep demanding the money from us, but we have no idea where Jerry is. He also owes us money, some he borrowed from us and our payments for campaigning for him,” she added.
It is alleged that Chitube was close to some influential people in the BDP which allowed the seemingly unknown character to make it as far as competing in the elections of one of the ruling party’s most crucial structures. These powerful people allegedly include former members of parliament and two current ministers Duke Lefoko, Mephato Reatile, Christian De Graaff and Tshekedi Khama. It is alleged that Chitube sent special thanks to Khama in the form of 2015 BDP branded diaries which he donated to the party members. The diaries are said to have cost over P600, 000 and some were distributed at the congress in Masunga. Khama denied knowing the Chitube name in a short sms response.
One of the people alleged to be close to Chitube, is Mophato Reatile who has since distanced himself from Chitube. “I only met him this year through Christian De Graaff and he told me of his intention to contest for the chairmanship two weeks before the elections,” Reatile refuted the claims.
“I told him it was late, but he believed he could do it,” he added.
Reatile said it is the nature of human beings to make up stories about others, disproving any relationship with Chitube.
He also claimed he did not know Chitube’s whereabouts or any family member he could ask. In contradiction, Chitube’s campaigners have said the two were inseparable and that he had access to Chitube’s money whenever he wished.
Effort to get a comment from De Graaff proved futile as he is said to be on sick leave and his phone was off air.
BDP Secretary General Mpho Balopi could not immediately verify the status of Chitube’s membership stating that it would take some time. He however said their party starts of with structures known as cells, then wards, branches, regions and then the main party which would make it difficult for anyone to come out of nowhere and assume the membership of their party. He said even though there are structures, it could happen at times that some people manage to bypass them and investigations would be carried out to determine how it happened.
“I would not want to go much into discussing the gentleman as it has been brought to our attention that he is a subject of investigations. We are still waiting to hear from the authorities, if the need arises we will do our investigations if we are compelled to submit anything