“So, how well do you know Gaborone?” Professor Fred Morton, historian and member of The Botswana Society - my guide for the day, fired a question while I was still drying the sanitiser on my hands. Without sounding overly confident, I told him that I know the city quite well. He handed me a small paper with 10 questions about Gaborone. I did not do very well with my answers. And so we started the tour to find the answers.
The first question was, “When was the modern city created?” Morton explained that Gaborone was a convenient choice for the city. In September 1960, Peter Fawcus, British Resident Commissioner of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, who was based in Mafikeng, set up a working committee to advise where the ‘permanent legislative headquarters’ should be located. Historians note that it was yet unclear that this automatically meant a new capital. It is said that nine places were considered, namely; Lobatse, Manyana, Shashe, Bokaa, Mahalapye, Dibete, Tuli Block, Francistown and Gaborone.
