By Sayoh Kamara
The Minister of Information and Civic Education in President Julius Maada Bio’s controversial second term Presidency has said of the main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) party that it is not a terrorist party.
He made this comment last Saturday when he was addressing the 52nd Annual General Meeting of the Sierra Leone Association Journalists (SLAJ) on the theme: “The role of Journalists in promoting dialogue, sustainable peace and national cohesion in post-election Sierra Leone” at the prestigious Dorwaila Inn and Suites in Kenema City.
Speaking in his trademark Krio language which he says he has adopted for ease of communication and message cognition by ordinary Sierra Leoneans, stated: “APC no to terrorist party. Memba dem na APC na we broda en sista dem. Togeda, na we all get Salone. We all na Salone pipul. Dis na dae position now of gofment en also na dae vision of His Excellency dae President Julius Maada Bio.”
Minister Bah’s acknowledgement of the APC party and its membership as “not terrorists” appears to be a radical departure from the 8th May 2020 policy statement by President Julius Maada Bio castigating the main opposition party and its members as “terrorists”.
Whether the Minister is in sync with his boss and indeed the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) hierarchy and membership is not clear. What is clear is that Minister Bah’s statement was deliberate and consciously delivered. He is one of President Bio’s youthful fresher Ministers.
Throughout his first inning as President of the Republic of Sierra Leone President Bio’s government and the SLPP party considered the main opposition APC party as an impediment to the realization of their socio-economic development agenda. Therefore, bordering on the prevalent security situation in the country at the time, on 8th May 2020, President Bio, in a national broadcast referred to the APC party leadership and members as “terrorists.” This attribution was sternly repudiated by the APC.
Three years after what was highly considered by many Sierra Leoneans then as “disingenuous and too inflammatory”, Minister Chernor Bah, speaking in Krio, appears to have noticed the discordance between that speech then and the reality on the ground now, to shift from that unwise attribution to now refer to the APC and its members as “our brothers and sisters” and that, “we all collectively own Sierra Leone, and “we are all Sierra Leoneans.” Whether the President and his bunch of politically and parochially minded advisers at the time are aware of this new paradigm shift and change of political opinion regarding the APC is not clear, but Minister Bah’s emphasis that this was the new position of the current government and indeed President Julius Maada Bio, is indicative of the fact that this youthful Minister has realized the mammoth blunder in the last five years to build a consensual rapprochement with the main opposition APC that could have ensured a bipolar working symphony relationship then and now.
According to Minister Bah, it is on the basis of this new adopted policy that the President has extended a hand of peace to the APC leadership which he said he expects the APC to reciprocate in like manner. The Minister however acknowledged the reciprocity of the APC in opening up to the current ongoing dialogue process, which he expressed optimism could yield the dividend of peace-building and peace consolidation.
The APC party in a response to President Bio then took exception to his denigration of the party, which is a legitimate political party as by law.
The National Secretary General, Alhaji Ambassador Osman Foday Yansaneh in a press release of 10th May, 2020 lamented on President Bio’s use of a national address “to denigrate a legitimate political institution which existence is in accordance with the 1991 Constitution and the Political Parties Registration Act of 2002.” The APC National Secretary had went on to inform the general public that that the APC was not in any “fight” with the Government of Sierra Leone, and expressed dismay that the APC party had been “wrongly implicated” when President Bio had asserted “emphatically” that, “Evidence emerging from investigations have named known local and international members of the APC as being responsible for inciting, planning, financing, mobilizing and in some cases actively participating in violent terrorist attacks against the people of this country.” The then APC National Scribe had also pointed out that the APC was a law-abiding party and that since the President was sworn into office on 4th April, 2018, the party had kept within the confines of the law and have resisted all forms of provocation and intimidation. He went on to cite the instances where the party’s offices country-wide were vandalized, party loyalists brutalized, raped and killed. “Many of our members had their homes burnt down and some were forced to seek refuge in strange lands where they continue to languish in misery and squalor.”
Alhaji Osman Foday Yansaneh went on to call on the international community and the nation to note that the President’s statement describing APC leaders and membership as “terrorists” could serve as “a precursor for lynch mobs to go after peaceful citizens of the country.”
A senior citizen in the East of Freetown on listening to the Minister on one of the social media handles commented that if Minister Bah’s words truly reflects the caprices of the President and his seemingly fanatic followers, “they would be turning the country’s direction on the right track of peace and inclusivity,” pointing out that the first five years of President Bio and the SLPP party (2018-2023) was marred by deepened tribalism and regionalism characterized by the a clearly manifested marginalization of the main opposition party and those considered to be associated with the party in the governance and administration of the State.
“The Sierra Leone that I have known since Independence has never seen naked discrimination based on tribe, region and worse still by names and surnames as was and is evident in this President Julius Maada Bio SLPP administration,” the veteran Statesman noted, and encouraged the current crop of Ministers and administrators in this second term of the President to adopt and adapt this policy change that has apparently been revealed by Minister Bah to tamper their acrimony with “love, empathy and a political socialization that will endeavor to see every Sierra Leonean feeling comfortable with their government no matter whether they support or not the government in power,”