- Says Councillor Amos was a liability
- Pilane gave her free accommodation for a year
- She was quarrelsome and liked fighting- Pilane says
- BDP won’t give them the joy and happiness we gave them
- They will remember us- says Pilane
SONNY SERITE
‘‘There is a lot I could say about Tsholo, but I won’t trade accusations with her. She is my daughter and will always be. I treat all members of the BMD the same and have no favourites irrespective of whether they support me or not,’’ leader of the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) Advocate Sidney Pilane responds when asked about Phakalane councillor Tsholofelo Amos who defected to the ruling party this past weekend.
Following her resignation from the BMD, Councillor Amos went on radio and publicly scolded her former party and former comrades, in what Pilane refers to as ‘‘waging a media war’’ against the BMD.
Pilane informed this publication that while he is sorry Amos feels the way she does, it’s a pity she is not coming out clean on why she was chased out of his farm house, something that is said to have played a role in her defection from the BMD to the ruling party.
‘‘As for requesting her to leave the house on the farm in Gaborone North, we have been doing so for the last 6 months as we need it for BMD campaigners with whom Tsholo was constantly fighting whenever they were there. When we initially gave her the accommodation she was being thrown out of a house she had rented without prior warning and she was desperate as she had no place to go’’, Pilane explained as to how Amos ended up staying in his farm house.
The BMD leader said he had told Amos that she could stay on the farm for 3 months while she looked for accommodation. ‘‘She has been there for a period in excess of a year and I can understand that she is not happy to move as it was free. We would have let her stay, if she did not have a ‘getting on’ problem with others. As virtually every BMD member would tell you, Tsholo is her own worst enemy as she is always quarrelling and fighting with everyone. The BDP will find this out for themselves.’’, Pilane said about Amos.
Pilane said she wishes Amos well at the BDP and that she is welcome back any time she wants. ‘‘She is also welcome, even as she remains at the BDP, to seek our help whenever she needs it. We will, whenever we can, give it to her as we always have’’, Pilane noted compassionately.
As for the other defectors, Pilane said he knows of only 4 in number including Amos. While media reports have indicated that at least 10 members defected from the BMD and listed them as Tsholofelo Amos, Mbakisano Tiyapo, Masego Chibidika, Kagelelo Kentse, Patrick Tseleng, Kentse Thapelo, Prince Moitoi, Phenyo Dikhudu, Gaolese Gaofofe and Nkgaswa, the BMD leader blamed the media for what he called ‘unending vendetta against the BMD’. “As usual a section of the media, in their unending vendetta against the BMD, describe the defectors as BMD in order to give the false impression that we are losing many people. We have no hard feelings as everybody is free to keep looking for a political home until they find what they want in political parties which the BMD evidently could not give them”, Pilane lamented
‘‘One of them joined us a few months ago from the BCP as he wanted to run for parliament in Maun West. He left us for the BDP after we gave the constituency to the BCP to which decision he was strenuously opposed. Now we know why Tsholo left and the other 2 we do not. Some of the others, such as Prince Moitoi was AP and not BMD, as were some of the others. This vendetta will fail as the truth never fails. We will be vindicated by time’’, the BMD leader said. Pilane noted that they constantly register hundreds of BDP members but do not advertise the fact ‘‘as we own no tv stations nor newspapers’’. He said they have registered several hundred BDP members in Moshupa Manyana in the last 2 months that they have been working there. “We have 240 skilful campaigners on the ground and the BDP must watch our numbers on Saturday June 16. The UDC is unstoppable and the BDP is on its last legs’’, Pilane said in a parting shot.
For her part, Amos said she was hurt at the way she was chased out of Pilane’s house. ‘‘After being so loyal to him, I couldn’t believe I was being chased out like a dog from his house’’, she said. Asked whether he had told Pilane about her defection, Amos said there was no need to have done so. ‘‘Pilane knows why I left so really he is the one who should be telling you why I left’’, she said in a brief interview on Monday.