Growing up in Kanye in the late seventies and early eighties was another experience out of this world. Yes, life in the bundus proved a bit challenging, with poverty, communicable diseases and related ills evident for many in the village. Despite, the horrors of life, majority of our people were content with life. They appeared happy about everything. You could tell from their faces that they were a proud lot. True that once in a while they did complain about lack of developments in their areas, but in general they preferred to live life on the bright side. For us kids, those years were the best one could think of. The innocence about the hardships of life on our part meant that we could do with the little at our disposal. We were ok with the way things turned for us. We frequented steams in Kgwakgwe to take a swim. And interestingly we thought the ‘river’ we used as our swimming pool was among the largest in the country, precisely because many of us had not left Kanye to visit faraway places. Our comprehension of life was severely limited. That limitation, however, did not in any way affect the positive and vibrant lived experience for many of us the young ones in particular and our elders in general.

We the younger group had a fun filled life. What I recall vividly was the night games we played in front of our yard with friends from neighbouring homesteads. There was one game in particular which was our favourite – hide and seek. In the middle of darkness, we were supposed to locate others, but I can’t tell exactly what happened next. That is how much I remember about that game. Importantly, danger was always lucking somewhere in the dark. We were told by parents not to play until very late because there were other creatures rooming the streets, if I may use that word! One of the talked about mystical and mysterious of such creatures was the famous Senonnori, which, we were told, was ready to pounce on any of us should we get lost in the dark. There was something strange about this creature. No one could explain exactly what that creature looked like. Was it an animal, a bird or what? But importantly it kept us safe; we successfully managed not to stray afar.

I never understood this animal until recently. Not that I saw it physically or otherwise. But latest developments in our country suggest that Senonnori was not just a mystical creation of bored villagers south of the Sahara. Our forefathers had foresight. They knew some things were unexplainable to ordinary mortals like us, but they were in fact a critical part of their mythology that helped them better understand certain phenomena – say, for example, causes of droughts, among many others. They knew when to invoke such ‘animals’ to see things clearly and help us avoid danger.

And yes were are living in dangerous times. This is an angry Botswana, decisively different from a couple of decades after self-rule when generally Batswana were a happy lot. We need to be honest with ourselves – the level of anger consuming this nation is just way too much. It has reached a boiling point. Even international bodies do confirm that we are an unhappy people. Sadly, this does not ring bells to those in charge of the republic. To them everything is normal: business as usual, so to say. To illustrate, parliament recently passed numerous bills to amend, among others, our electoral system. The midnight express by the ruling MPs was about the introduction of electronic voting machines (EVMs). The background to the latest move by the BDP is instructive – they endured the worst electoral performance in the 2014 general elections. Not only that, recent by-election results also confirm the precarious position the once mighty Tsholetsa Domkrag finds itself. Consequently, the nation was not surprised that maintenance of power would be their priority. What surprised us through was the willingness by BDP MPs to literally deny themselves sleep to pass such a draconian bill, with far reaching implications for our democracy. And we are surpassed when we as a people are ranked among the least happy nations?

We have not only seen the proposed EVMs, which has raised our temperatures lately. Like elsewhere in southern Africa, grand graft has literally institutionalised with little or no political will on our superiors to bring to book perpetrators of such acts. The effects have been disastrous for the ordinary mortals, who are unable to access clean water, better health care or even get government funded scholarships. In the process the poorer are becoming worse off and by extension the gap between the rich and them expand beyond repair. In the meantime, our leaders would want us act normal. They want us to be peaceful, to be happy that they are doing something for us. Common, this attitude doesn’t sit well with many of our people. Their anger in that regards is well explained.

I met a friend who wanted to specifically understand the genesis of this anger. I tried in vain to avoid him, but at the end I wanted him to tell me which cohort in our society to focus on. His interest was visible anger among the post-independence up until the late 1970s groups. These people, I told him, are angry because they witnessed an imminent poor nation make tremendous progress until the late 1990s. Having seen the country rise together with so called Asian Tigers, they expected more to come from our country. Unfortunately, we reached a dead end and, as they say, we are now on a regressive mode, largely because of poor planning and political corruption. It makes sense then that these people should be visibly angry.

What is needed to address this speck on development trajectory? Establishment of strong institutions to fight corruption and instil accountability on the part of our political leadership cannot be overemphasised. If that fails, we can invoke Senonnori to scare the perpetrators.

*Dr Molefhe teaches Public Administration at the University of Botswana