The President of Sierra Leone Bar Association, Basita Michael, stole the show at the just concluded Bintumani III dialogue conference in Freetown. Her presentation, during the second day of the meeting, immediately sparked off series of debates on many social media forums.
The presentation from the controversial Bar Association President was peculiar in the sense that it bluntly pointed out to the current anomalies of the new administration as very similar to what has happened in the past. This, for her, has fuelled the problem around national cohesion rather than working towards addressing it.
Basita Michael noted that, “We cannot talk about peace when we keep on sacking people at jobs which have tenure of office. We cannot be talking about peace when we impose a Speaker on the majority party in Parliament. We cannot talk about peace when we make appointments based on tribal lines and regionalism.”
The Bar Association prexy also called on the First Lady to tone down the rhetoric, noting that her office is critical in the development of the country. She commended the First Lady for her work around the protection of women and girls.
Basita also, as usual, lashed at the Ministry of Environment and Housing, which, according to her, has been illegally repossessing state lands without reference to the courts of the law, amongst others.
She concluded by also pointing out that the failure of the opposition and other groups that have not attended the meeting deprived them of the opportunity to vent out what is affecting them as a group or political party.
We realize that since the first lady at the Bar made this spectacular presentation, people around and within the ruling party and governance circles have taken a hypocritical stance on the position of the country’s esteemed lawyers. We have even seen some lawyers taking a position to lash at Basita Michael for her true and Sierra Leonean stance.
Their responses to Basita’s presentation have been trivialized to party and regional considerations. Some failed politicians in the country’s political system at the Bintumani dialogue have even attempted to castigate Basita by insinuating that she did not refer to the constitutional breaches of the past. Common! Basita was representing a whole organization of literate and legal minds. Can’t we for once respect their views on a national issue?
It was the intention of President Julius Maada Bio to have a forum across all shades of Sierra Leonean society to frankly discuss the burning issues affecting our nation’s drive to national cohesion.
An attempt to victimize Basita Michael would not resonate with the President’s aspirations to seek a permanent solution to attaining peace and national cohesion. The President did not gather people at Bintumani to sing praise him and his government, but rather to point out what is undermining efforts to have a national cohesion. Basita had represented the position of all the legal minds in the country and she is indeed genuine.
Leave Basita alone as she has done what is expected of a true and patriotic Sierra Leonean. Failing to point out the truth will do us no good. Government and the organizers of the conference should take the recommendations of Basita Michael like the others in good faith in putting together the resolutions of the conference.