When political myopia and short-term gains inform the enactment of national laws, history has shown that such instruments—initially designed to muzzle dissent—often end up haunting their very architects. In Sierra Leone, the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) under President Julius Maada Bio has, once again, engineered a legislative Frankenstein in the form of the new Anti-Terrorism Law. Hailed by its sponsors as a tool to uphold national security, the law bears all the hallmarks of a political weapon—repressive, vague, and disturbingly convenient for silencing critics. But what has sent shockwaves across the nation is the surprising twist: the All People’s Congress (APC) has publicly endorsed the law, not as a show of bipartisanship, but as a strategic nod to a political reality the SLPP appears too blind to foresee.
History, as always, is the greatest teacher. And in Sierra Leone’s volatile political landscape, the past echoes loudly with irony and poetic justice. In this latest endorsement, the APC is sending a chilling but calculated message to the SLPP: “The laws you craft today could be the chains that bind you tomorrow.”
The Pattern of Legislative Overreach:
The SLPP has carved a reputation for crafting controversial laws. From the 1960s under Sir Albert Margai to the present day under President Bio, the party has often demonstrated a disturbing obsession with centralizing power. Sir Albert, for instance, introduced the Public Order Act of 1965, a draconian piece of legislation that was widely criticized for stifling press freedom and curbing political expression.
While it was the SLPP that passed that notorious act, it was the APC under Siaka Stevens that weaponized it with surgical precision. Once in power in 1968, the APC used the Public Order Act to clamp down on opposition voices, muzzle journalists, and eventually institutionalize a one-party state in 1978. The very law that the SLPP thought would insulate them from dissent eventually became the whip with which the APC flogged them into political irrelevance and exile.
This historical precedent is not only instructive but deeply symbolic. It shows the dangers of enacting bad laws under the illusion of permanence in power. The Anti-Terrorism Law of 2024 seems destined to follow that same trajectory.
APC’s Endorsement: Tactical Endorsement or Political Trap?
To the politically naive, the APC’s endorsement of the Anti-Terrorism Law may appear as a betrayal of opposition solidarity or even a sign of weakness. But a deeper analysis reveals a more calculating and intelligent move. The APC understands all too well the cyclic nature of Sierra Leone’s political power. No government reigns forever. What goes around, surely comes around.
By supporting the law, the APC is positioning itself not just as a party ready to enforce law and order but as a party capable of turning the SLPP’s own tools of oppression against them—should power dynamics shift, as they invariably do. The law’s vague definitions of “terrorism,” its allowance for indefinite detention, and its criminalization of protest can be brutally effective instruments of control. If the SLPP used them to cage critics and suppress protests, what prevents an APC-led government from using the same law to summon every SLPP stalwart who had once cheered its passage?
The warning is implicit but deafening: SLPP, beware. You are building the legal scaffold on which your own political survival could hang.
The Legacy of APC: Implementers of SLPP’s Legislative Sins:
The APC, throughout its history, has demonstrated a skillful aptitude for law enforcement—whether those laws are just or unjust. Unlike the SLPP, which often crafts laws with ideological undertones, the APC has always focused on application. From the state of emergency declarations in the 1970s to the 2007 Public Order restrictions during Ernest Bai Koroma’s rule, the APC has been more concerned with how to use the law to preserve order—or, depending on one’s political leanings, to entrench its rule.
Even during the height of political unrest, the APC proved how effective bad laws could be in the hands of a party unafraid to wield them. It was Siaka Stevens who fully operationalized the 1965 Public Order Act to eliminate dissent, arrest journalists, and even remove members within his own party who appeared disloyal; and it worked—devastatingly so. The SLPP was reduced to a political skeleton, surviving only in whispers and exiled memories.
Fast forward to 2024, and the Anti-Terrorism Law offers the same ominous potential. Its stipulations on “public disturbance” and “threats to national cohesion” are eerily similar to past laws used to jail political opponents under the guise of national security. And the APC, by endorsing this law, is signaling that it knows how to make the most of it.
The SLPP’s Political Amnesia:
Perhaps the most tragicomic aspect of this unfolding drama is the SLPP’s failure to learn from its own history. The very architects of laws that once silenced them are now mimicking those blueprints, convinced that their power is invincible. But history scoffs at such arrogance.
SLPP operatives may cheer now, thinking they’ve handed themselves a potent tool to suppress critics and consolidate their rule. But political winds change, and with them, the meaning of power. The very law that is now seen as a sword against “terrorists” and “enemies of the state” may soon be used as a net to capture the same people who enacted it.
By the next election cycle or two, should the APC regain control of the state machinery, the Anti-Terrorism Law will stand ready—not to protect SLPP leaders, but to prosecute them. In a country where political vengeance is often disguised as justice, the law’s elasticity will be stretched to its cruelest limits.
A Warning Not to Be Ignored:
The APC’s endorsement of the Anti-Terrorism Law is less of a celebration and more of a chess move. It is a mirror held up to the SLPP, reminding them of a historical loop they seem doomed to repeat. For every oppressive law passed today, there awaits a future in which that law becomes the whip of retribution.
SLPP, be warned: bad laws are political boomerangs. You may launch them with glee, but you cannot control their return. In a nation like Sierra Leone, where power is neither eternal nor guaranteed, the most dangerous weapon a party can hand its opponent is the legislative sword it forged for its enemies.
If history is any guide, then the Anti-Terrorism Law may one day be celebrated—not by its creators, but by its future enforcers. And that is the true genius—and danger—of APC’s endorsement.