The Voice (Francistown)
Nomsa Ndlovu
22 April 2008
Francistown — A wail of agony cut through the air at Molepolole Village cemetery. It was last Saturday morning, as mourners bid farewell to Moakofi Echo Walktall Ngwanaamotho, a victim of a cold-blooded murder that recently shook the village of Maun.
The Maun Water Affairs Department employee, Senior Technical Assistant (STA) Officer 1 Ngwanaamotho, was slaughtered on his 49th birthday at Mogotlho residential area in Botshabelo Ward.
Father to the deceased, Inalame Thebeyakgosi-a-Mosweu, supported his jelly kneed wife Babi as they led a procession of next of kin to cast soil into the grave with unsteady hands. Earlier, during the viewing of the deceased, many cried loudly as they saw Ngwanaamotho lying peacefully in his coffin, with noticeable knife-stab wounds close to his left eye, nose and mouth.
However, uncle to the deceased, Keoekantse Philimon, divulged that the major cause of his death resulted from a deep cut on his chest close to the heart. Water Affairs representative, Gape Dinyao, told the mourners that Ngwanaamotho was murdered at around 2am on the 3rd of April 2008. His assailants broke into his rented room where they found him asleep. "The information that I'm giving you is from a neighbour on whose door the deceased fell and died while crying for help. We hoped that he would be here to narrate the details to you but we learnt during the last minutes of our departure to this place that his employers refused to release him from duty," Dinyao said.
During the attack, Ngwanaamotho was heard crying out, saying; "Nthusang, batho ba a mpolaya. (Help, people are killing me)". From his room, the deceased ran to the gate of the yard, gushing blood mapping his footmarks. Then his track went back to the yard where he approached his neighbour's room, faintly knocked and instantly tumbled on the ground as if he had been hit with a heavy object.
He was also heard pulling himself up on his feet again, his hands as aid on the door while his blood painted the entrance red. Then he fell again, groaning, breathing in grasps ...then silence. "Sadly, the narration is only from what the young man in the other room heard. He told us that he neither peeped through the window nor opened the door in fear of being attacked by the vicious murderers," Dinyao said. Dinyao said the neighbour immediately sent out SMS to his brother pleading with him to call the police. He did not have enough airtime to directly call the cops. The neighbour's brother is said to have called back assuring him that he had called the police and they were on their way.
But the police never came. Instead of fetching a happy birthday 'boy' for work in the morning, a WAD colleague was instead met by the horrific scene; Ngwanaamotho's bloodied corpse still at the neighbour's door. The police arrived at the scene at round 7am to find the nude body of Ngwanaamotho surrounded by residents. He was sprawled in a pool of dried blood. None of his body parts had been extracted for muti ritual purposes as rumour is rotating in Maun.
The deceased and the said neighbour, whose identity The Voice has concealed for security reasons, were tenants in a yard whose other structures were demolished due to the relocation of its owners to Disaneng Ward. Most Botshabelo residents have been moved to make way for the expansion of the Maun Airport. Ngwanaamotho joined WAD in 1984, and immediately underwent training in Borehole Mechanics and Auto-Mechanics.
Soon after finishing his skills training course, Ngwanaamotho furthered his studies at Botswana Polytechnic where he graduated in Mechanical Fitting and Turning and Machining and Auto Mechanics. In 1986, he was permanently employed by WAD, promoting him through the years from a Technical Assistant to the post that he held at his time of death.
The deceased leaves behind both parents, eight siblings, two children and 13 nieces.
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