- Treachery has replaced ‘moono’- says Pilane
- Pilane says UDC partners are greedy
SONNY SERITE
Following the announcement last week by Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) President Duma Boko that the coalition has decided to suspend one of the partners, Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), the leader of the BMD Advocate Sidney Pilane has broken his silence and expressed his views on the development.
Speaking to The Botswana Gazette over the weekend, Pilane explained that they negotiated and agreed on the division of constituencies but some of the contracting partners seem to be “greedy” and want to take what does not belong to them.
‘‘Our UDC partners, purely out of greed and an obstinate refusal to accept that the only way to liberate Batswana from BDP misrule is to coalesce and share political power, have resorted to tactics of oppression. Yesterday’s liberators have become today’s oppressors’’, Pilane charged at UDC partners.
Pilane said their UDC partners have now relegated Batswana ‘‘to the ranks of the unimportant, and their hunger for political power has, as always before, assumed supreme importance over all else. Treachery has replaced moono’’.
He dared anyone in the UDC to try and claim constituencies that have been allocated to his party. ‘‘Nobody is taking BMD’s constituencies on any pretence and stratagem. We do not recognize this suspension, which is unlawful and a nullity’’, Pilane warned.
Pilane is still hopeful however that the current composition of UDC can be saved should the leaders introspect and look at the bigger picture. ‘‘It is not too late for our partners to learn from Mr D K Kwelagobe’s wise injunction: a return to the crossroads where we will surely find the People’s Project, come together in peace and take the noble moono of the pre-BCP appearance on the UDC scene forward’’, the BMD leader pleaded.
According to Pilane, the BMD is already at the crossroads where they are waiting for their partners to re-join them so that together they can resume the march forward to liberation.
‘‘We need to resume the march forward to liberation of our people in 2019 in the spirit in which Gomolemo Motswaledi toiled for the UDC and died doing it. He did so for a country and people he loved and not so bomajapolaelo should come along and high jack the struggle. Verily I invoke his spirit whence he resteth!’’, Pilane concluded.
Boko announced last week Wednesday that the BMD has been suspended from the UDC and given two weeks to show course why they should not be expelled from the umbrella body. Pilane has dismissed the suspension as unlawful and illogical.