The good riddance of erstwhile Minister of Lands, Dr Denis Sandy, could not have come as a surprise to patriots and realists. In fact, some feel that it was long overdue.
He had been throwing his weight around after the fashion of a sacred cow but alas nemesis caught up with him. Justice has been moving slowly but has overtaken the wicked Denis Sandy.
The President has the prerogative of hiring and firing of ministers. It is not an easy role. Sometimes there is little choice among rotten apples. In any case there is a super-abundance of competent individuals among the members of the SLPP. Dr Denis was appointed putatively on the basis of the reputation he had gained as a rolling stone from PMDC to APC to SLPP. As he gains more experience, in steering the ship of state, the President will learn from the Sandy episode that he should be more circumspect in appointing unstable characters. It seems that the skeleton of Dr. Sandy’s character was not properly examined. What the public did not know about Dr. Sandy’s character has been exposed for all to see. “Trick nar smoke e nor go lock nar box.”
Lands issues are always dialectical everywhere and were no less so during the past regime of the SLPP when the late Dr. Bobson Sesay earned the sobriquet ‘Broke Ose.’ But he acted with discretion within limits. He acquired state lands from private citizens and gave them alternate lands. Unlike Bobson Sesay, Denis Sandy had the temerity of seizing lands of the Krio Descendants Association (comprising a strong minority) as well as centuries-owned lands of Krios even in the central business district of Freetown and in the Western Rural Area.
Denis Sandy had a propensity for deceit, which the government falsely regarded as zeal. His zeal was not for the public good but for his own good. He was a false reformer. William Shakespeare did write that “The evil that men do lives after them.” But these days it would appear that the evil that men do lives with them. Thus it is that Dr. Turad Senesie who was deputy to Dr. Sandy is now in control.
It shows that what goes round comes round. It also shows us all that no condition is permanent and that we should take care so that our actions may not haunt us in future.
The main gripe of the hapless landowners is that their lands were seized without adequate compensation in spite of the fact that, in most cases, they had legitimate documents of entitlement to those lands. Such lands were soon sold brazenly to bidders and were not for public use which exacerbated the anguish of the losers.
Many lawsuits have been lined up against the absentee accused. The long arms of the law are relied on to claw him back to answer to his misdeeds. No degree of ‘connectocracy’ can exonerate him from justice. It matters not whether he has gone, made off, escaped or broken away.
Dr. Denis Sandy was an inglorious neuter to the country. Let justice be done though Sierra Leone perishes.