My fellow Basotho, for how long are we going to keep on entertaining the illusion that Lesotho is a viable, futuristic and sustainable nation state?
Didn’t Donald Trump tell the world right in our faces that we are a country “nobody has ever heard of”? and nobody indeed came to our defense. Yes, Trump is a certified moron and a clinically madman, but did he not have a point that our claim to statehood is a hoax.
Teboho Mojapela might not be a classic socialist revolutionary, in the true Marxist-Leninist concept of the term, but he is surely a practical man. Perhaps the most realistic politician Lesotho has ever produced.
When he calls for Lesotho to be submerged into South Africa, It is not self-hate. It is realism. It is self-awareness. As a very successful businessman in his own right, he is just being practical. Sadly, practical politicians are a rare species in Lesotho. Mojapela is the proverbial lone sensible voice in the wilderness.
Having built his business empire successfully over the years, Mojapela knows what it takes to achieve success. He understands that Lesotho is not going to achieve any success by pretending that it is a viable state or can ever become a viable state when reality dictates otherwise. Lesotho is far better off merging with SA into one huge gigantic economy. Yes, we will be bringing nothing onto the table of unity because we have nothing. Yet we stand to gain much more by submerging ourselves into SA.
Why do we continue burying our heads in the sand with the assumption and wretched belief that one day, Lesotho – on its own – is capable of grow into a sustainable, viable, industrial state? How exactly is that ever going to happen? Please tell me all of you who wear the Basotho badge as a sign of honor instead of clamoring to become part of one big economic giant called South Africa?
Why can’t we see the wisdom in Teboho Mojapela’s stance that our salvation as a country lies in only one solution – submerging into the multi-gazillion maloti South African economy?
Just imagine the ubiquitous advantages of merging Lesotho into South Africa. The moment we become Mzansi’s 10th province, milk and honey starts flowing our way.
We immediately become the only one, very large African country with access to two oceans – the Indian and Atlantic. We become one with our kith and kin across the border and we stop competing because we speak the same language. We immediately assume all the advantages and benefits of being part of the continent’s largest and most industrialized economy.
The senseless Maseru Bridge “border” post and other such “border” posts dotted around the Kingdom will immediately and deservedly be gutted. Nobody takes them seriously anyway as we freely cross Mohokare River to and from SA.
Our M30 billion economy – which is the same size as that of the tiny Masilonyane and Tokologo municipalities in the Free State – will immediately scale to a multi-trillion SA economy.
Only by becoming part of South Africa, will we ever achieve our goal and dream of hosting the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) soccer tournament.
Thank you LeFa
And if you needed any justification that Mojapela is right in his noble quest to have Lesotho and South Africa become one country, look no further than at the antics of the Lesotho Football Association (LeFA). No one has done more in vindicating Mojapela and debunking the canard and self-delusion that Lesotho is a viable “country” than LeFA.
AFCON is the continental football spectacle requiring multiple CAF-compliant stadiums, five-star hotels, world-class training facilities, international airports, broadcast infrastructure, government guarantees running into billions — and a basic thing called seriousness.
We, meanwhile, do not possess a single stadium fit enough to host a match of drunken boozers. Not one. Yet LeFA saw no shame or problem in bidding to host or co-host the 2028 AFCON with South Africa.
Our national team plays its “home” matches in foreign countries because Setsoto Stadium is a permanent promise. An eternal work-in-progress. A shrine to feasibility studies and artist impressions.
Yet, in the midst of this infrastructural desert, someone thought it prudent to knock on South Africa’s door and whisper: “Please take us along to AFCON.”
South Africa, to its credit, pretended not to hear.
And who can blame them? How do you include a co-host that cannot host? A partner that brings neither stadiums, nor hotels, nor guarantees, nor money — only altitude and misplaced enthusiasm?
Investors must be howling with laughter. Imagine pitching Lesotho as an investment destination while simultaneously bidding to host a continental tournament without a single compliant stadium.
But forgive investors for asking a modest question: if you cannot build and certify one stadium in 50-plus years of independence, what exactly convinces you that you can manage a multi-billion maloti AFCON tournament?
This is not ambition. This is theatre.
And not even good theatre — more like community hall drama where the curtains don’t open and the lights don’t work.
We are a country that struggles to finish our sole stadium to host home matches at home. We cannot upgrade one stadium in time, yet we dream of welcoming Africa’s footballing elite?
This is precisely Mojapela’s point. We are not a serious “nation”. We need to submerge into SA.
It is not self-hate. It is self-awareness.
A nation that cannot distinguish between aspiration and fantasy cannot demand to be taken seriously on the global stage. Investors do not invest in wishful thinking. They invest in competence, infrastructure, predictability and scale.
Right now, we offer only altitude and speeches.
Perhaps the real legacy of this AFCON episode is not embarrassment — we have grown immune to that — but clarity.
If we cannot host a football match at home, how exactly do we host our own economic future? We simply can’t.
We need someone to carry us. Mojapela is therefore right.
Just imagine a scenario wherein cars from South Africa flow uninterrupted into Maseru without these strictures called borders? Our car wash industry will boom.
Just imagine the humungous amounts of money that will flow into Lesotho if executives of large SA corporations are allowed to freely take their nyatsis to the mountains without the risk of getting exposed at these so called borders?
In the final analysis, I will not blame bontate Motlatsi Maqelepo – our minister of sports and tourism – and Mokhosi Mohapi – the LeFA secretary-general, for attempting to have Lesotho host or co-host AFCON 2028 despite them fully knowing that Lesotho does not have a single viable stadium to stage a weekend game of drunken boozers.
I consider their attempt their own kind way of appealing to their colleagues in the government to seriously heed Mojapela’s call
And – by the way – only by being submerged into South Africa will our King Letsie III and all his successors be accorded the dignity and welfare they deserve. Witness how successive politicians and governments have failed to build our King a decent house in Maseru (aka palace). His palace has been in a state of dilapidation for years now.
How can politicians – who cannot build their King a decent house – be surely expected to create thousands of jobs?
Our King has been forced to commute to his own village of Matsieng every day to get a decent place to sleep. Yet the moment we get submerged into South Africa, he will immediately get well looked after by Pretoria like his peer Misuzulu Sinqobile kaZwelithini or before him, Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu.
If Lesotho politicians cannot be trusted to look after our venerable King, they surely cannot be trusted to create any jobs or any form of prosperity for Basotho. They only way to get our King well looked after is if he becomes King of all Sothos stretching as far as Palaborwa.
Unless you are a moronic peasant, you have no option but to agree with Mojapela while throwing stones at Ntate Lipholo.
Lipholo is that mad Ntate who has been pursuing his lost cause of wanting to have South Africa submerged into Lesotho instead of the other way round. Thank God, no one takes Lipholo seriously. Not even his wife.
I can only encourage Mojapela to persist with his noble effort to build a coalition of parties that will demand that Lesotho be collapsed into South Africa. On that one, I stand with Mojapela and he has my vote.
And next time Tjeka Tjeka embarks on yet another futile demo demanding that Ntate Sam fulfill his promise to create more than 100 000 jobs for the youth, Tjeka Tjeka must seriously ask himself how that is possible? Where will Ntate Sam get the money to create those jobs and in which sectors of the economy? Where is that economy capable of creating such jobs? Certainly not in Lesotho. Tjeka Tjeka must thus stop asking Ntate Sam to do the impossible? If Tjeka Tjeka really wants to help Basotho youths, he must stop his protests. Demonstrations don’t create jobs. But good ideas do. He must instead raise his voice in supporting Mojapela’s noble call?
Ache!!!
