The return from abroad of former Head of State, Dr. Ernest Koroma, over the weekend, was greeted with enthusiasm and foreboding depending on which side of the political spectrum citizens were positioned. Under other circumstances, with a less ostentatious membership, the losing party’s leader would have slipped in unobtrusively. But it would appear that the APC has not yet reconciled themselves to the odious fact that they are out in the cold for the forseeable future.
It will be recalled that the ex-president had threatened to make Sierra Leone ungovernable if he didn’t win the election of 2007 and that he had not withdrawn that statement until his recent loss of power. Therefore the Sierra Leone Police, in their bid to live up to their immediate post-war reputation, put up a robust show of security. They took no chances.
This nation, like others even in the developed world, has suffered irreparable losses owing to the lackadaisical response to forewarnings of threats to state security. Thus it was that when former President Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was informed by intelligent sources that rebels were about to invade Freetown he simply took the telephone and asked the Army Commander who told him security was alright. The result of that assurance was that the rebels entered Freetown in the next couple of days and he had no alternative but to flee the country by helicopter.
Similar lapses of indifference to warnings have been exhibited in Britain and France, where information on dubious characters was taken with a pinch of salt until hundreds lost their lives. Even the 9/11 Twin Tower attack in the United States was ignored resulting in humiliation of the world’s leading power.
The former President, Dr. Siaka Stevens, a man of different mould, had a short way in such matters. When former President Samuel K. Doe of Liberia closed his own side of the border he promptly did the same.
The Sierra Leone Police must have been reminiscent of the Idi-Amin era when neighbouring Tanzania invaded Uganda with the authority of the former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere.
This is why the Sierra Leone Police should be commended for being pro-active this time round albeit they went off the rails by attempting to muzzle free expression. It is believed however that the bad egg responsible for un-Sierra Leone Police activities has been removed. It is hoped that the Sierra Leone Police has now been transformed to the New Direction. They seem to have been imbued with the idea that only God and fools don’t change. They are to realize that eternal vigilance is the price we have to pay for our Freedom.