Today Botswana’s president Mokgweetsi Masisi fired Isaac Kgosi as Director General of spy body DISS, and immediately replaced him with Brigadier Peter Magosi.
News of Kgosi’s declassification excited the whole country with very little attention given the new man to take over at what has been the most powerful security institution in Botswana.
He must have known that he would be returning to the big stage as he was part of the guests at the weekend’s 41st BDF Day celebrations. All along he had been a busy man engaged in both cattle farming and crop production inside the Kweneng enclave and had in recent months resurfaced as head of intelligence in the tourism’s wildlife department.
The military educated man had been in forced retirement after former President Ian Khama sacked him from the army in 2015. A man known to have been within the inner circle of the then president, a reported conflict between himself and former BDF Commander Lt. Gen. Gaolathe Galebotswe was fingered for Khama’s decision to remove him from the army.
He was also reported to be at loggerheads with Kgosi who reportedly set the DCEC, Botswana’s corruption and economic crime busters, on him for alleged corruption. He would be cleared of any wrong after the DCEC could not find anything on him.
In a strange twist, President Masisi has since taken the man out of the oblivion instigated by Khama, and fired Kgosi whose contract this year had been reportedly extended for five years by Khama.
Magosi is one of the most educated army men in the country having attended several schools and colleges of military and intelligence operations. He has even been used to train army men and other security agents both locally and in Africa, as well as at countries overseas.
He joined the BDF in 1985 as an Officer Cadet but quickly rose to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in 1987, and then Lieutenant the following year. He has been to foreign missions, among them peace keeping errands in Somalia, Lesotho and Mozambique among others.
He formed part of the three-man reconnaissance mission that preceded the entry of Botswana’s army men into a volatile Somalia for peace-keeping efforts at what became known as Operation Restore Hope.
In 1987, he studied an airborne course in USA. He enrolled for a Junior Command staff course hosted by Canada in 1993, did a poaching and terrorism linkage course in the USA from 2006 to 2007 and did Senior Command staff course at the US Army War College. His training specialities also include terrorism, poaching and cyber crime.
His profile book also shows he has held the positions of Counter Terrorism Team Commander (1986-1992), Company Commander 21 Infantry Battalion (1992-1994), Training Officer Ceremonial and Guard Unit (1994-95), Officer Commanding BDF Security (1995-2000), Commanding Officer Commando Unit (2000-2004), Commander Special Forces Group (2004- 2007), Deputy Chief of Military Intelligence (2007- 2008) Assistant Chief of Staff Intelligence (2008-2012 and in 2013 moved became Brigade Commander.
Among his college qualifications are a Masters in Defence Studies and Masters in Strategic Studies. He will operate under the same DIS Act that saw to the rise of Kgosi’s fearsome stature.
NEW BROOM: Peter Fana Magosi is the new Director General at the spy agency, DISS
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