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ENTHRONING A POLICE STATE

02/10/2017 08:38:00 By Vusi Sibisi

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My initial subject matter for today’s column was government’s latest position to stay the decision of compromising the livelihoods of long-haul public passenger transport operators in favour of a company but I was forced to reconsider when I weighed the implications of the sad matter of businessman and owner of Kobe Ramokgadi Advanced Learning Academy, Geoffrey Ramokgadi.

Haunted by the humiliation and embarrassment occasioned by government when he was reduced to a common criminal, Ramokgadi has finally decided to turn his back on this country he has lived in for a better part of his productive life.
I should mention from the beginning that as a natural Mbabanite, I have known Geoff for a considerably long time. In fact, he is among those role models we grew looking up to in admiration of their business acumen and successes. Geoff’s construction of a classical double storey house at Eveni at a time when very few indigenous compatriots, blacks so-to-speak, owned mansions in Mbabane suburbs, defined the man and his tastes and became talk of our social circles as we were growing up in the dusty and overcrowded townships.

Ramokgadi found himself in the eye of the storm recently when, in a precisioned military styled incursion, he was raided and arrested by immigration officials with about eight police officers in tow in full glare of pupils and teaching staff at his school in Ezulwini’s Goje Township. The heinous crime justifying such a naked show of force apparently pertained to his residence permit that was allegedly not in order. Mine is certainly not to get into the merits or otherwise of this sad tale that could never have been allowed to happen. It all goes to prove the excesses of the obtaining political hegemony with its disdain for human rights.
But assuming that Geoff’s immigration papers were not in order, couldn’t a telephone call from the Immigration Department been sufficient to remind him of the fact than such callous display of force that was patently aimed at portraying the businessman as a common criminal. After all, it is unlikely that with ownership of a multi-million Emalangeni school and residence, respectively, he would have jumped the border over such an infraction.

Or could it be that someone is after the assets he has painstakingly accumulated over the decades in this country. After all, we are now living in a country in which the ordinary folks are progressively and systematically being deprived of the means to a decent livelihood owing to a new and poignantly structured class society that graphically depicts George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Not surprisingly, the spectre of such public humiliation has now forced Ramokgadi to cut ties with this country following his decision last week to dispose of his multi-million Emalangeni school by putting it on the market. Can anyone sincerely believe that Ramokgadi will be a good ambassador for this country and promote it as an investment destination of choice?
The answer to this question is obvious, negative! Unfortunately, Ramokgadi is also an influential voice among the Jewish community here and abroad and could derail trade and investment initiatives from this powerful economic bloc.

And who would blame him after this country reduced him to a common criminal?
As if that was not enough, the Ramokgadi experience was followed shortly by an incident in which over 10 police officers reportedly rained bullets on a fleeing BMW motor vehicle in Manzini. This incident, coming almost a week after the Ramokgadi episode, immediately created the superficial impression of an oversupply of police officers in this country, which would be a contradiction to the perennial complaints by police chiefs of personnel and equipment shortages.
These incidents were followed by another one that occurred at King Mswati III International Airport in which police arrested, for no apparent reason as later determined by High Court Judge Justice Mumcy Dlamini, six tourists from Afghanistan who were here for the annual Reed Dance ceremony.

All these incidents, not to forget routine complaints of police brutality on unarmed civilians, reinforce the notion of this kingdom being a police state. And who can argue otherwise if and when the police service is perceived as an appendage of the obnoxious Tinkhundla political system and not in service of the nation.
As I see it, the police’s public relations record is in tatters with the public increasingly looking at police as enemies created to prop up the Tinkhundla political system and answering only to the master’s voice. So far there is no evidence suggesting police chiefs are doing anything practical to mend fences for a symbiotic relationship with the public but only fixated on enforcing an authoritarian order. However, the question is will this toxic environment be sustainable in the long term as it is not in the best interests of the nation.
Perhaps it is time for police commissioner (I do not want to be complicit in the breach of the supreme law of the land, the Constitution, by using the unconstitutional title of National Commissioner of Police) Isaac Mmemo Magagula to review his beloved policing science that appears to be dysfunctional. Oh cry the beloved country that has been reduced to George Orwell’s Animal Farm!