According to the biographer of Gobe Matenge, a former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, he was one of several civil servants – including the future vice president Peter Mmusi – that compelled the Motswana government to adopt "Fatshe leno la rona" as the anthem of the independent nation. In order to ascertain the opinion of the general public on the matter, the government transmitted all of the contending hymns over Radio Botswana. However, Matenge's group was able to obtain recordings of these songs for themselves and air them in front of quasi-town hall gatherings held in major settlements like Lobatse, Molepolole, and Mafikeng, in addition to the capital Gaborone. They strategically played "Fatshe leno la rona" as the last song – which in theory would increase the likelihood that the audience would remember the tune – while having their organisers add words of praise for it in an attempt to sway the crowd's opinion in favour of that hymn. At the end of the exercise, they would circulate a boilerplate form letter articulating the author's viewpoint of "Fatshe leno la rona" being their favourite candidate for national anthem. This was done because of the low levels of literacy in Botswana at the time. Of the multitude of letters sent to the Department of Information and Broadcasting, the vast majority of them expressed an inclination towards the aforementioned song.