04 Sep 2024

‘U Mthimkhulu,’ (The big tree) that has been providing shade, shelter and safety for Gaborone South constituents has fallen.

News of the death Gaborone South legislator Honourable Dumezweni Mthimkhulu has left  residents of Old Naledi (Mdeni) White-City (Vet-Kasi), New Naledi, New Stands and New Canada reeling in shock.

He was loved dearly.

Among the things that endeared him to his constituents ,was that when he was in the neighbourhood, known in local parlance as lekeishane, he would take off the minister hat and remained their mfana wa Kasi or Dickson Xcwela as he was affectionately called.

The lawyer-turned-politician was loved by the young and old, he gave his electorates attention, and his door was always open for them. 

They knew there was no need to make an appointment to meet the cabinet minister because he was one of them and there was no red tape or protocol needed to follow  to meet him.

Fellow lawyer, who grew up in Old Naledi, Mr Tebogo Sebego wrote on Facebook page that Gaborone South had lost its son.

 “A very sad day for us in Mdeni, Bontleng, White City, New Naledi, New Stands and New Naledi. Dumezweni Meshack Mthimkhulu aka DDM represented a true story of resilience, ambition fearlessness and above all accomplishment and success. 

“He, like many of us were brought up in the Old Naledi of the 1970s and 1980s, an underprivileged neighbourhood where crime, lawlessness and school truancy was rife. He   fought and his stripes both as a successful lawyer, later as an MP and cabinet minister”. 

He studied law and became a practicing attorney, and cut his teeth in politics under the ambit of the Botswana National Front (BNF), which under its party founder and chief ideologue, Dr Kenneth Koma, the then Gaborone South Member of Parliament (1984-2004) had made the area its stronghold.

In the 2014 general elections, he decided to stand as an independent candidate after his fallout with the BNF.

“He hurt the BNF badly at the 2014 general elections and BDP won through Kagiso Molatlhegi, sweeping the heart of the BNF, thanks to DMM”.

Mr Mthimkhulu joined Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in 2015, and in the 2019 polls, he stood under the BDP ticket, and ‘the writing was on the wall, as the voters in the area found him to be authentic … their son. BDP took us to the cleaners with Councillor Senyolonyolo (Oarabile Motlaleng) as one of the few survivors from the opposition. DMM was loved by Gaborone South, he was our hero’.

Former Mahalapye East MP, Yandani Boko, wrote: “I had good moments with the late Hon. Mthimkhulu when I was a legislator. I called him PORO, we had bad moments too inside the chamber. However, outside the hallowed house we cared less about the seemingly virulent exchange we had, in my last days before I signed out, we spent a lot of time together just by the chairs near the chambers entrance. We gossiped about other lawyers, The MPs were not spared, we analysed a lot of them”.

Leader of Opposition, Dithapelo Keorapetse, wrote that the late Mthimkhulu was brutally honest, jolly and he was both pleasantly and unpleasantly distinct.

“He related well with every MP with a clear understanding that in those hallowed chambers, we stand with a difference of opinion on policy issues, and that, outside the chambers, we were all human beings. Often and in, confidence, would share his view on an issue but would articulate his party position steadfastly, cogently without equivocating. He was a man who neither equivocated nor used euphemisms.

“He lived by a Kantian principle of ‘if the truth shall kill them, let them die’ DMM was the kind that gave you what you ordered in terms of feedback. He was brave enough to annoy and infuriate anyone who would cross him.” Ends