Former Lesotho prime minister Pakalitha Mosisili has written a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa objecting to a decision by the Free State to honour the late Leabua Jonathan.

Jonathan is also a former prime minister of the Mountain Kingdom who ruled in the 1970s and 1980s. In his letter, Mosisili said Jonathan's era was characterised by a reign of terror over innocent Basotho.

The Free State government has set aside R3.5m for Jonathan's statue that would be erected next to that of late ANC leader Oliver Tambo in Bloemfontein.

The statue was supposed to have been unveiled in October.

Mosisili said they had also learnt of celebrations that were held for Jonathan in QwaQwa, where it was also announced that a road connecting Ladybrand (in Free State) and Maseru (in Lesotho) would be named after him.

"Needless to say, a decision to build a statue of a former prime minister of Lesotho in South Africa and to name a road so close to our boarders after him, is bound to elicit varying opinions to Basotho.

"It is at best a highly controversial and disputatious decision that needs proper and unfettered ventilation," he said.

The Free State government said it was honouring Jonathan for his contribution to allow exiled ANC members to stay in Lesotho during apartheid.

But Mosisili argued that according to the documented history of Lesotho, Jonathan declared a state of emergency, suspended the constitution of Lesotho and ruled by decree after he lost elections in 1970.

"In his time Chief Jonathan dismantled the Latimer House principles on the separation of powers.

"I, myself, was locked up with many others at the maximum security prison for 15 months and denied the opportunity of recourse to any court of law or even access to a lawyer," he said in the letter.

He said the decision was unbelievably insensitive and unnecessarily provocative. "You have to imagine the building of a statue of DF Malan, the chief architect of apartheid, in an African country or indeed any other country with a justification that Malan did some act of benevolence for the citizens of that country," he argued.

Spokesperson for the Free State department of arts & culture, Tankiso Zola, could not be reached for comment.

Ramaphosa's spokesperson Khusela Diko confirmed yesterday that the president had received the letter and had noted the concerns. "He had not yet responded to the letter but he is giving [it] serious consideration," Diko said.

The ANC in the Free State said it had asked government to wait a bit on its plans.

"We told them to wait until all Basotho have been consulted. We don't want to write the history of Lesotho," spokesperson Thabo Meeko said.