Prof Bernard Mbenga, a well-known historian and academic from the North-West University’s (NWU’s) campus in Mahikeng, delivered a public lecture – The Bophuthatswana Government and the University of Bophuthatswana: The Quest for Legitimacy and International Recognition – at the recent Africa Day symposium and celebrations.

The lecture forms part of the Africa Month series of lectures hosted by the university, focusing on the University of Bophuthatswana (Unibo), as founded in Mahikeng in 1979 by Lucas Mangope, the then president of the Bophuthatswana homeland.

In his lecture, Prof Mbenga recalled how Unibo had the backing of mining corporations such as Impala Platinum operating in the homeland, and that many individual residents of Bophuthatswana contributed from their own pockets to establish the university.

“Initially, Unibo was under-resourced; many lecture rooms and offices were merely portal camps in the open veld nearby the developing town of Mmabatho,” said Prof Mbenga. “However, the government later invested heavily in the university, partly to present it as a centerpiece for Bophuthatswana, which was considered an illegitimate surrogate of South Africa by its many critics. Yet Unibo attracted a variety of staff distinctly different from those found at South Africa's universities at the time. Among the people finding employment at Unibo were a number of black non-South African academics (including a few South African exiles returning from African states), some (mainly British) post-colonial academics looking for new opportunities, and a number of more radical white South African academics attracted by the possibility of a more progressive and open agenda.”

In closing, Prof Mbenga spoke of the need to document history, as this documentation preserves the culture and presence at the time of the people who created the history. “This record would survive and outlast many generations, educating all and birthing more histories to be recorded and documented. That is the cycle of life,” he concluded.