Monkagedi Gaotlhobogwe
3 November 2009
Two comedians hired to entertain the audience at the Botswana Musicians Union (BOMU) Awards, the BOMU awards seem to have raffled feathers with their carefree jokes, which were also beamed live to many households, thanks to Botswana Television (Btv).
Listening to Gabz fm the following morning, one could hear caller after caller, lambasting the comedians for their insensitivity. The duo trade by the name Laugh A Little Laugh A Lot, and they are known in comedy circles as just Bobo Rib Cracker (Bobo Letsatsi) and MOD (Modiri Keseobetswe). The latter was also the Master of Ceremonies (MC) of the show, while his friend would chip in-between to tickle the audience with laughter.
Interestingly, both are the chairman and secretary general of the Association of Comedy in Botswana, and they have been tasked by the Ministry of Youth, Sport Culture to coordinate and promote comedy in the country.
But Rib Cracker's jokes often lacked moral sensitivity, causing the audience to frown rather than laugh. The following morning callers on one of the local radio stations made their feelings plain about the comedians. They sulked.
Imagine this joke; Rib cracker jokes that Agriculture Minister Christian De Graaf knows nothing about cattle because he cannot say cattle marks, colours and brands in Setswana. He also said he viewed De Graaf's presence in the Cabinet as President Ian Khama's strategy to get someone who is poorer than him in the mastery of Setswana, so that he (Khama) can boast that he (Khama) is better!
MOD must have rubbed some pro-Khama the wrong way when he gave suspended Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) Secretary General Gomolemo Motswaledi, a hero's welcome. He even joked that potholes in Gaborone "won't go until the roads are named after local heroes" like Gomolemo Motswaledi.
"Why can't we just call one of the roads Gomolemo Motswaledi...anyway the problem with that one is one day you will hear a traffic cop announcing that Motswaledi road is suspended..."
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
