A former President of Botswana, Mr Festus Gontebanye Mogae, 72, is the head of the Commonwealth observer team in Nigeria monitoring the April, 2011 polls. In this interview he gave his impression of the polls since the team arrived Nigeria last week and spoke on issues relating to the rest of Africa. Excerpts:
You have been here for a few days now to observe this year’s elections. What have you discovered so far?


We have discovered that efforts are being made to ensure that all votes count in this election.  Already, the new registration of voters was done successfully. But there is also this feeling that people are determined to prevent their votes from being perverted or stolen. People think they are going to vote, they will stand there and have the votes counted, to ensure that the election is in the direction they voted. This gives rise to tension. So everybody wants to ensure that things are done the right way. Under this situation, one is happy that there is determination to do the right thing, but still, there is apprehension.


The issue of whether voters should stay at the polling units after voting has polarized INEC and the security agencies. The INEC says voters should stay to ensure their votes are counted, but the police say it is risky for the people to stay there and monitor the vote counting…?

I think the situation is this; the security people are worried about the security. On the other hand, INEC has been very transparent. It wants to ensure that all the stakeholders see them as being transparent, so if the people say they want to be observing what is being done, they are saying, okay, come and see it. This is good and reassuring. We, as observers, would want things done the right way. We’ve been watching the evolution of democracy in Nigeria since the last decade. There is supposed to be improvements in the elections, but this seems not to be so. The elections have been a disappointment, especially the 2007 elections. The assumption was that you’re consolidating your democracy, to be a great country. We expect that this election will be credible and INEC is doing everything possible to ensure this credibility. So far, the voter registration was transparent, and the INEC chairman is working to ensure that we have credible elections.


You have met with INEC officials. What did they tell you and what advice did you give to them?

The INEC chairman told us some of these things I’ve told you. He said the voters registration was conducted successfully, but it would have been better if there were more time to do the registration, as because of the short time some who should have been voters couldn’t registere. They may have been disenfranchised unintentionally. The other thing was the issue of voters waiting on the queue after accreditation, because if you have been accredited, you can’t go home and return. Well, the idea is to preclude the possibility that those who have been verified through accreditation, those people don’t go to other places to vote and return. You can see that this is out of anxiety to prevent mischief. For instance, I mentioned to the chairman that if one is on the queue and there he hears that some child has fallen off or taken ill, the person cannot go and come back, as he will be prevented from voting.


In the run-up to the elections, we discovered that the ruling party’s jingles and advertisements were on television, radio and newspapers, but state-run media  houses rejected advertisements from the opposition. Are you aware of this and what is your reaction?

I am not aware of that, but that is not what should be done. All the media organizations should give equal opportunity to all those who are contesting elections and equal coverage. If state-owned media organizations are giving more publicity to one party and not doing so to other parties, it is not right. That should not be so. All contestants should be given equal opportunities in the media.


You were quoted as saying earlier in the week that violence may not affect the quality of the results. How do you explain this, because, during the elections if there is violence, the election could be disrupted? How do you think any result from such election could be credible?

Yes, it can, but let me explain what I said. I mentioned that to the extent that violence takes place, that means the elections will not be as free and fair as they should be. If there is violence in one or two places and there is peace everywhere else, the election could be said to be credible, even though incidents of violence took place. But if it is very widespread, then it will affect everything. In that case the quality of the result will be affected.


What is the mode of operation of your team? Are you sending out members to every part of the country?

Members of our team left today for several parts of the country. Unfortunately, the Commonwealth is faced with constraints in resources, so we don’t have a team that will cover the whole of the country. There are about 22 of us.  Two persons have gone to some states. They travelled this morning. About 18 of us are going to the states and the rest of us will remain in Abuja here to receive reports from those on the field.


How often would you be making statements about the elections?

It depends. Our intention is to contribute positively to the outcome of the elections. We can’t make statements that are premature, which may conflict with situations on ground in many places. But whenever we issue any statement, we’ll ensure you receive such statements.


If we’re to move away from Nigeria, there’s this situation in Cote d’Ivoire where African nations are seen not taking any serious action and the situation is getting worse. If you put this viz-a-viz what is happening in Libya where the United Nations is taking action, what is your viewpoint?

The situation in Cote d’Ivoire is not an easy one and it never was. It needed expeditious action. The more it stayed, the more the situation deteriorated, the more opinions in the country are polarized and people will begin to fight and kill each other. That is what has happened. Now, we’re in a civil war in Ivory Coast. It is extremely difficult, though I don’t know the position Gbagbo is now. Whoever becomes president now is going to inherit a bitterly divided country.  A decisive action should have been taken much earlier.


On October 20, 1999 when you were sworn-in as president of your country, you vowed to tackle poverty and unemployment. Did you achieve your objective and how did you do it?

When you become president, you state what you want to do and you try to do as much as you can. Then, when another president takes over, he does what he can. In our own case, we wanted to tackle poverty and unemployment. They were serious problems facing our country. But we had this huge crisis of HIV/AIDS on our hands. Our country was one of those which had a high prevalence of the disease, and we had to manage it. It was unexpected. So we took financial resources away from our original plans. You have to ensure the people are alive before they take up jobs.  However, we were able to reduce the number of unemployed from about 40 per cent to about 23 percent


How did you provide the jobs? Did government employ the youths or how did you do it?

Well, as a government you can’t provide all the jobs. You have to create the enabling environment for the private sector to operate, because it’s the private sector that will do much of the employment. For a developing country, government has to undertake a number of things and provide some jobs, but you can’t provide all the jobs. You have to provide the enabling environment for private investors to operate.


At a point, you had to negotiate with foreign firms which were mining your mineral resources. What happened?

We relied heavily on foreign experts to mine our diamonds. We didn’t have the expertise. First, we set up a team of officials. We wanted to know the total amount of revenue to be generated from the diamond sale of the project and what share of that revenue will be retained. Is it 20 per cent or 25 per cent? What happened in our case was that very poor. They were the ones (the foreign firms) were those who found the diamond and they were going to do the mining. At the location of the diamonds, there were no roads, no water, no schools, there was nothing. We had to find out for how long they would recover what they spent to provide the facilities. They told us it would take seven years. We said, okay. But they recovered their money in 18 months, and we all celebrated. But they said the agreement was based on seven years. We said we wanted the people to know how much was coming in and how the money was being used. Since that time, in our national budget we state how much we earn from the mines and what we earn from taxes and dividends, etc. We ensured transparency. At a point, we had to renegotiate.


How were you able to overcome the sycophants in your country at the point when you wanted to step down in 2008? They would have told you that you were the best person; you should stay on forever; that you can subvert the constitution, whatever.  How did you resist the temptation?

Human nature is human nature. If former President Ibrahim Babangida had not cancelled the 1993 elections, the situation in your country would not have been the same today. If the military had not intervened in 1966, or if there had not been a civil war, there would have been interactions among civilians/politicians and democracy would have improved.


But were you not under pressure to remain?

(Laughs) Being president is hell! It was when I was president that I developed high blood pressure and diabetes. These are stress related problems. So, I couldn’t have remained at the end of my tenure.


You won the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership in 2008, but since then, no African president has won that prize. Why is it so?

That I won the Mo Ibrahim prize in 2008 was an accident of history and that no other African president has won it is not because there are no people who can win it. Another African leader can still win it in future.


Do your children speak the Kalanga dialect?

My wife is Kalanga; she speaks the Kalanga dialect, but I speak more of Setswana, but the children speak a little of Setswana. But as a result of urbanization, they speak English and Setswana.  Even now, people are saying the young ones cannot speak correct Setswana and they blame government for this. My first child has Kalanga name but she can’t speak the Kalanga dialect.