How a dead man petitioned Khama
Ryder Gabathuse | Monday December 2, 2013 15:17
But Ignatius Moswaane, the man who is at the centre of the Hollywood-style script as the preferred candidate for the BDP in the by-election, is denying any privy knowledge of how the dead man could have petitioned President Khama to use his extra-ordinary powers to stop the poll in the public interest.
Or how, in his death or thereabouts, the man underwent a transmogrification that caused him to cross the floor from the Botswana Peoples Party to the BDP where he became a fervent activist who believes in the power of protest action to move a party that has a history of suppressing even a murmur of dissent.
“People were just coming to a centre in Monarch where they registered their names,” Moswaane says.
“It is possible for people to share names.”
But is it possible for people to share even identity card numbers?, Mmegi asked. “To that one, I don’t know now,” came the answer.
Moswaane wants to distance himself from things, dead or otherwise. He is not aware of any fraud committed by anyone on the petition, dead or alive, because he was away – and alive - in Gaborone when the whole thing started.
The highly influential dead man is Tolani Poiso, a former Deputy Secretary General of the BPP.
Until his death in 2010, Poiso lived at House Number 6956 in Francistown’s neighbourhood of Monarch. On the BDP petition, he signed as “T.Tolani” in a manner that raises questions, not least of which must be the necromantic prowess of the BDP.
So influential that he and others, some certainly very much in life, have caused the President to invoke his extra-ordinary powers to move mountains by postponing the Francistown West by-election at the eleventh hour from October 23 to January 25 in the New Year.
“If Poiso can sign a petition from the grave, as depicted by the petition that the presidency acted upon last week, then it is possible that a lot of other dead people have been used to convince the presidency to accept the petition,” says BPP leader Motlatsi Molapise, who knew Poiso well when he was in life as people know it.
He asks pertinent questions of the purported petition and Comrade Poiso: “Since Poiso is dead, who really forged his signature to convince the presidency? Can the people of Francistown West petition the President from the grave and be heard?”
Besides being in the top leadership of the BPP, Poiso lost as a council candidate for Monarch in the last general elections.
In the absence of straight answers or a confession, Molapise speculates that because political parties have copies of voters’ rolls from the 2009 general elections, the BDP must have transcribed the names of people – dead or alive - from the voters’ rolls onto the petition.
“Why on earth did BDP activists claim that people had signed a petition when a lot of their people knew nothing about the petition in the first place?” he queries.
Molapisi concludes: “For all we know, the BDP is in power by means of fraud because the Francistown West petition could just be the tip of the iceberg.
More skeletons are likely to tumble out of the closet.”
Upon being shown a part of the petition, his deputy, Khumbulani William, shared the bewilderment and conclusion: “One does not have to be a fingerprint expert to detect that people were used here to transcribe names of others, their contact and identity numbers, their residential addresses and then their signatures forged.”
William observed that out of the 202 names that he examined, it looks like only eight people wrote and signed the petition.
“It is impossible for people to have such similar handwriting and signatures,” he said.
Mmegi investigations concur with this conclusion of eight people used to transcribe the names of people from a different source, most likely voters’ rolls of the last general elections.
In some instances, Mmegi observed that the same people who must have transcribed the names and details from another source, most likely voters’ rolls, appended their signatures.
Although people choose how to format their names, most people prefer to use their surnames as the anchors of their signatures.
On the purported petition, however, signatures are anchored on the first names instead of on surnames, a distinct irregularity, at least for Batswana.
Another observation is that the signatories used initials of their forenames and write out their surnames in full.
A typical example of forgery on the petition is that about eight people bear a similar scrawl for a signature.
For instance, Office Annah, Seruthu Bose, Reginah Seruthu, Ishmael Kagiso, Motebele Nanes, Madubagu Lucia, Sereetsi Maxy and Sereetsi Mbona are written in the order of forenames and surnames. For all these names, the signature is a scrawl that reads something like “Kes”.
Further, Office Annah, Madabagu Lucia, Sereetsi Maxy and Sereetsi Mbona are not convincing as personal names, especially as they appear on the petition in the order of surnames before forenames.
Speaking to the Chairman of the Francistown Region of the BDP, Ford Moiteela, elicited a declaration of ignorance of the petition and its contents.
“Like many people, I have seen the petition in newspapers as it was not sanctioned by the BDP per se,” Moiteela said. “We hear it was sanctioned by a group that called itself Monarch Development Committee.”
But inspite of his attempt to separate the BDP from the purported petitioners, he acknowledged that some BDP operatives in Francistown West constituency may have led the petition, “but the BDP did not initiate the whole thing.”