Given what they suffered in 2016, Botswana hills and trees will be bracing themselves for another round of assault in 2066 when the country celebrates its centenary of independence. Some hills were spared but virtually all within walking distance of human settlements were defaced with celebratory messages written with stones painted blue, white and black. As usual, the shade of blue was not always the right one. The environmental hazard extended to trees whose trunks were painted the same national-flag colours. Even if you know little about trees, you can bet on one thing: the ability of the affected trees to produce breathable oxygen has been severely compromised.

The golden jubilee may have established celebratory standards that are likely to be repeated in 2066. Then the population will have grown exponentially, with human settlements enclosing almost every hill. Hillsides and tree trunks will turn a hideous blue, white and black and environmentalists will rue the 1923 day when someone erected the Hollywood sign in the Hollywood Hills. On a budget of P200 million, the stand-alone Ministry of Culture will constitute a BOT100 Committee to oversee the enactment of a spectacle befitting a centennial celebration. Two months after D-day, its members will be trying to untie their tongues before the Parliamentary Committee on Statutory Bodies and State Enterprises to explain some irksome tenders. The Committee will not ask why the BOT100 logo looks suspiciously like that used by a Pacific island for its own centennial independence celebrations.

It is just that easy to predict the future and 2016 showed us an awful lot about what will happen in the near and long term. It was in this year that the government controversially decided to switch from manual to electronic voting. The opposition is convinced that the introduction of electronic voting machines (EVMs) is a ploy by the Botswana Democratic Party to hold on to power. Despite assurances by government officials, these machines are very easy to be hacked into and evidence of that abounds. Something that the Selebi Phikwe West MP, Dithapelo Keorapetse, said with regard to the introduction of EVMs (“We are prepared to pay with our lives.”) should give one pause. Oddly, the MP was never quizzed about his statement but in an African context, paying with one’s life means only one thing and occurs under certain circumstances. Other opposition activists have stated that if EVMs are used in the 2019 general election, they will boycott it. Parties that boycott elections typically don’t recognise the legitimacy of the one that wins such elections and anywhere else, that bodes ill for a country’s peace and stability. As a recent exchange on this particular subject showed, EVMs have become an unusually emotive subject. A worked-up Keorapetse said that the Minister of Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Eric Molale was “lying.” Molale said that during a trip to India, Keorapetse expressed a favourable view about the machines. Miffed, the minister had to remind the MP that he is old enough to be his father. That is how raw emotions get when the issue of EVMs comes up and this is only 2016 and the first order has not been placed yet. Like it or not, unless amicably resolved, the EVMs issue will reshape Botswana’s political landscape in very profound ways, some of which few even want to think about. The general lack of reaction to Keorapetse’s statement about “paying with our lives” would seem to confirm deep reluctance to think long, hard and aloud about the full import of that statement.

Still on the political scene, the race for the next BDP leader got fiercer, with every promise of reaching its fiercest next year. One name that has been mentioned is that of Nonofo Molefi, the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Development and Selebi Phikwe East MP. It is interesting to consider Molefi’s candidacy within the context of his tribal and geographic origins. The current president, Ian Khama, is the third from Serowe after his father, Sir Seretse Khama, and his predecessor, Festus Mogae. It seriously rankles with some people that Bangwato from Serowe dominate the presidency. In the campaign to get Molefi elected BDP president, there is no mention of the fact that he is a Mongwato from Serowe. What that portends for the future is outrage if Molefi’s bid is successful.

Graduate unemployment is reality Botswana has lived with for some time now. In 2016, some of the unemployed graduates demonstrated outside the National Assembly and immediately incurred the wrath of the security forces. The planning and execution of this particular demonstration were wanting in many ways and it achieved no concrete results. However, Botswana’s masses of unemployed and vicariously employed youth as well as income inequality are a combustible mix that even the African Development Bank generally warned about in its 2014 financial inclusion report. At this point one thing is certain: the next time, the university-educated unemployed pour out onto the streets in full graduation-day gear, another group of young people wearing its own (riot) gear will also turn out in full force, shield in the left hand, baton in the right. When the fashion show is over, only one group will be standing and trampling over a dust-covered mélange of mortar boards and academic robes.

That the town of Selebi Phikwe could not depend on copper and nickel forever has always been common knowledge. That that would happen in 2016 was something nobody knew and therefore didn’t plan for. What is happening in Selebi Phikwe is definitely going to happen to all other mining towns in Botswana. That raises two very pertinent questions: What happens to Jwaneng and Orapa when the diamonds are mined out? How far are plans for JEDU - the Jwaneng Economic Diversification Unit?

Far away from Botswana, the unthinkable happened. In the most industrialised western nation, a man who openly wears virulent racism, misogyny and bigotry as badges of honour won the presidency. The result is that on January 20 next year, Donald Trump will become – at least in the public imagination of Americans, the “most powerful person on earth.” Candidate Trump threatened to deport the 11 million illegal immigrants in the US and if the local grapevine is right, some Batswana who were part of that group have started self-deporting themselves after he won. Candidate Trump also threatened (given how he campaigned, “pledged” is not a word you want to use) to tear up all of the US’ international trade agreements and pen new ones.  That threat bodes ill for the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) through which Botswana sells textiles to the US.

Those qualified to analyse international politics see Trump’s election as evidence of the rise of a global racist movement that goes by the innocuous-sounding name of “white nationalism.” In the United Kingdom, Brexit emboldened racists and France’s rising political star is as openly racist as Trump. In the US itself, there have been incidents where white people getting on public transport vehicles have told black passengers to move to the back as was the case before Rosa Parks came along. White nationalism will never be favourably disposed towards Africa and the gains that the continent made in the last couple of decades may be reversed. Someone was only half-joking when he said that Trump’s foreign policy towards Africa will be “Where’s that?” That Trump might offer incentives for black Americans to “return” to Africa cannot be completely ruled out because he clearly doesn’t consider them to be American and would allegedly have them hidden away in the kitchen when he visited one of his casinos in the 1990s.

Ending on a positive note, 2016 showed that Botswana’s first Olympic gold medal is just 400, 200, possibly 100 metres away. Minus Brazilian souvenirs, the men’s 400 metres relay team came back empty-handed from the Rio Olympics but there was a brief moment when it held its own against the best in the world.