“He says I want to kill him! He fled the country to our neighbors then went to report us at the United Nations, a place that he has never set foot inside before.”-Masisi
GAZETTE REPORTER
President Mokgweetsi Masisi has issued a direct warning to former president Ian Khama that his administration will retaliate against his continued attacks on the country’s leadership and its government.
“It’s very painful to speak like this about our former leader but the time has come because of what he does and says against us. I have advised our ambassadors to stand up to his excess,” said the President.
In a leaked recording of the president’s closed door address to delegates during the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) National Congress in Gaborone, Masisi doubled down on what he believes is the root of this conflict.
“Just understand that he is only upset because I refused to appoint his younger brother Tshekedi Khama as my vice president. Khama has never really been a member of the BDP. He has been a member of himself and he is the ideal of what he wants,” Masisi said while encouraging delegates to protect the party’s republican ideals.
“He says I want to kill him! He fled the country to our neighbours then went to report us at the United Nations, a place that he has never set foot inside before. In my tenure there has never been any instances of extra-judicial killings, during his reign there was. And because he supported ICC, he must be very cautious of the ICC because in extra-judicial killings there are cover-ups and those tend to get uncovered.”
Masisi added that he had no interest in trying to make Khama’s life miserable but, “He must not go around pretending to be the paragon of virtue, honesty, and integrity because he is not.”
Responding to Masisi’s recording, Khama dismissed the allegations made in the
leaked recording. He accused Masisi of never speaking the truth adding that there seems to be no end in his dishonesty. “It is my observation that Masisi has either suffered a cruel loss of memory in most if not all of the allegations he is levelling at me possibly due to mental breakdown. He has now chosen to throw scorpions toyed with the oath of secrecy as an established principle of good governance, twisted the facts and invented stories that he knew never happened,” Khama said in a statement released on Wednesday.