The people of Sierra Leone are like sheep without a shepherd in a rough, dangerous, expensive, and treacherous wilderness. Tired of waiting for a leader or party that speaks about and has plans to offset the daily rises in the prices of goods and services, the state sponsored and approved violence, and corruption under a regime that does not tolerate freedom of speech, association, and choice; the people of Sierra Leone took it upon themselves to address the president and his government’s plans that have neither improved on the people’s quality of life nor changed our material condition as we are still grappling with the same old, pothole-ridden and unsafe roads and working in dilapidated structures that should have been condemned as unfit for human habitation; let alone to operate as a place of business.
The economic hardship that continues to define the daily experiences of the majority of the population has led the people to come out in their tens of thousands across the country to protest against their material condition despite all that was promised them by the incumbent party and president. However, on 10 August 2022 and 11 September 2023, the aggrieved citizens who weren’t able to stay quiet took to the streets in protest for which many of them including some police officers lost their lives. The August 2022 protest was to raise awareness on the high cost of living and the regime’s inefficient handling of the fundamentals that were present to solve the people’s pressing needs. The September 2023 protest action was called for by the people in protest of the chief returning officer announcing the president as the winner of the 24 June 2023 presidential elections. At both scenes many citizens lost their lives and many police stations and posts across the country were set on fire.
But after waiting for a solution to their problems spanning almost seven years under president Bio, after their experiences with trigger happy police officers who seem bent on shooting protesters instead of negotiating with them, what is the next plan of action from the people of Sierra Leone, who said they are tired of waiting for someone or a political party that is bold enough to speak out against the excesses of the current government of Sierra Leone?
The president Bio led government has made it hard for anyone who is bold enough to want to speak out against how they have handled the issues that continue to dominate news headlines and social media chats in Sierra Leone and the diaspora. Citizens that have spoken to this medium about the current level of hardship and the ineffective responses from the media and the judiciary say the government has created personal or self-hardship by controlling every public purse string to the point where they dish out favours to those who support them and are unrelenting in their strangling of those who speak out against how they have handled the economy, our peace and security and national cohesion.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media is very quiet. The experiences of journalists, media houses, and the owner or publisher of media houses who are bold enough to write about or publish what the government has done when compared to what they had promised often lead to jail time. Where arrest and spending time in jail for days on end fail to stall them, the government starves media houses by not advertising in their newspapers while those that openly support government no matter what they do continue to enjoy fruitful business relationship with the government. The public is aware of what happened to the journalist that exposed the deposit of millions of dollars into the account of the first chief minister David Francis. The owner of this medium has been arrested severally for publishing stories that have embarrassed and exposed the government. Many heads of media houses that speak out on behalf of the people have been arrested, some severally, for publishing materials the government considers as being against their agenda.
The judiciary to whom the people should be able to turn to for relief from how they have been treated by the government or based on how public officials have treated them continues to make decisions and pass judgements against the people. There is a general agreement that the judiciary has been so compromised that they are considered a captured arm of government by the executive arm. The current fight for electoral justice by the flagbearer of the main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) should have been handled by the courts. The eighty plus recommendations from the Tripartite Committee are to be handled by the judiciary and house of Parliament. But with their allegiances and commitments strictly to do things in line with the expectations of the ruling party and leader that appointed them, no one in Sierra Leone expects for the judiciary to pass judgements that are free, fair, and credible.
Despite them voting for change last year, the people feel robbed by the incumbent party and president they say conspired with their appointed head of the electoral commission to announce a presidential result for which no one has been able to see the voting record from stations across the country. Although we have an illegal regime in power, no one is free to speak out against this. We are here celebrating the outcomes of the UK and US elections, but we are yet to celebrate ours as the winner continues in his position despite all the objections to his declared victory.
Corruption continues to have a free rein by members of the Julius Maada Bio led government as detailed in the Auditor General’s reports from 2018 onward. Yet we are not seeing the kinds of court cases and arrests as was the case when the Audit Service Sierra Leone reports on the previous government headed by Ernest Bai Koroma. The one-sided anticorruption fight is viewed as child’s play by the Anti-Corruption Commission who has failed to bring charges against members of this regime complicit in corrupt handling of the public purse.
Left with no one to fight for them, the people of Sierra Leone have been on a journey in order to seek relief from a burdensome regime that continues to fail to deliver on their campaign promises. So far the Free Quality Education, the Anticorruption fight, the fight to plug Financial Leakages, the Feed Salone, and Human Capital Development has all failed to deliver to expectation and promise. Their trumpeted successes are only on paper and from much talking. The regime lacks the fundamentals to implement as the road infrastructures that are critical to their accomplishments are all in deplorable states of disrepair.
Left in a situation where they feel like they are being bounced from pillar to post, knowing that the police are armed and ready to shoot them without ever facing the court of law, the people have confided in this journo that everything has a tipping point. They pointed out to the nature of the 10 August 2022 and 11 September 2023 protests actions they said were organic – spontaneous and unplanned protests by people from across the country that are experiencing the same difficulties albeit at different levels.
Only time and place will inform the people when to take their government to task, something that their elected leaders were supposed to handle on their behalf. Lonta!