Former President Ernest Bai Koroma who once labeled senior All Peoples Congress (APC) politicians as ‘Munku’ Politicians is now dabbling in ‘Munku’ politics more than anyone else in the party.
The former President once openly castigated his colleagues during a meeting held in his hometown of Makeni at the height of the contest for the party’s flag. He tagged all flag-bearer hopefuls at that time as ‘Munku’ and also responsible for the party’s conflicts and problems. But, many say it is now clear that, he is the “worst Munku” since he failed to protect the party at a time he was needed most.
Instead of fighting for a party that brought him to fame and the people of Sierra Leone on whose back he rose to prominence, he has chosen to go his own way as he declares that it is now time to rest.
“I have got a lot of bad name and I want to rest now,” the former President said in a private conversation with a senior APC (All People’s Congress) politician known as M.S. Bangura.
This statement which has dashed all hopes came after several allegations from many APC politicians especially the party’s bloggers that he had sold the elections to President Julius Maada Bio for the second time at the detriment of the party and its presidential candidate, Dr. Samura Kamara.
Dr. Kamara ran for the presidency in 2018 and 2023 with the incumbent, Maada Bio, but lost both with the second polls being the most painful. His votes were allegedly stolen in broad daylight. According to credible sources within the party, the ex-President wanted Samura Kamara to forgo his victory in a style akin to 2018.
According to claims made by opposition politicians, Ernest Koroma did it in 2018 and repeated similar pattern in 2023.
Widely seen by cross sections of Sierra Leoneans as a Munku and rustic man, Koroma is bold enough to command Samura Kamara to stifle the right to free speech of APC media bloggers saying he had got much of their taunts, insults and provocation.
“You often speak with the bloggers, but you failed to stop them from insulting me,” Koroma directly accused Samura Kamara, a politician he handpicked to succeed him.
Like Samura, Ernest Koroma too has been accused of sponsoring a well-known social media ventriloquist, Abdul Will Kamara aka Adebayor who has insulted almost every dignitary or highly placed official in Sierra Leone including the President. Currently, Samura is getting Adebayor’s worst side as hardly a day passes by without insulting APC’s strong man for which he has been abandoned by key APC members.
On the contrary, he has never insulted Ernest Bai Koroma and Chernor Ramadan Maju Bah who many see as the former President’s blue-eye man.
Ernest Koroma too has been urged quite often to stop Adebayor and disassociate himself from him.
Koroma is Sierra Leone’s former President who ruled for an uninterrupted two terms (2007-2018) and handed over power to then opposition leader now President Julius Maada Bio amid high hopes that Bio would unify the country and continue the country’s development trajectory.
Sierra Leone was in full swing and properly positioned when President Bio took over in April, 2018.
Energy, roads, health, investment and employment, cost of living and economy among others were thriving well on the eve of Koroma’s departure from state governance. But, in five years, almost every aspect of national development has been taken backwards and if Koroma backs out at the eleventh hour, according to the grassroot members, he is backing what call a “backward regime.”
In the area of energy, almost everyone knows where Sierra Leone is as far as supplying electricity is concerned. Hugely Indebted to the Karpowership, an agency that supplies energy to Sierra Leone government on contract, Sierra Leone does not enjoy reliable electricity, its on-and-off pattern has destroyed electrical appliances in several homes particularly in Freetown.
In the worst incidents, houses have been burned down through what many call “bad light” phenomenon throughout the country. Perhaps one would say the roads are better off as they were left behind by the past regime. Since ex-President Koroma left, there has been no major road construction project except few streets in Bo city which have been paved.
Even the road from Bo city to Mattru town in the South still remains in its worst form with a collapsed bridge at the Chiefdom headquarter town of Bumpeh-Ngao.
Reports state that locals bear the pain and high cost of traveling to Bo city by using other routes leading to different villages.
Apart from the sectors mentioned above, the health component appears to be the worst-hit even when Maada Bio promised to build an ultra-modern diagnostic hospital to cater for all types of sicknesses so that Sierra Leoneans could stop flying to Ghana and other parts of the world for health problems. Frequent deaths in hospitals and worst of all, Covid-19 outbreak expose weak links in the country’s health system.
Without a solid infrastructure (good roads, bridges and energy), talk less of investment and employment.
Investors are willing to come to a country that is investor-friendly and create jobs for the jobless youth.
At the moment, Sierra Leone’s investment is rated the lowest since 2018 and little wonder that the teeming youth population still struggle for the few jobs the country offers.
Lack of proper investment and absence of jobs has resulted in high cost-of-living crisis that affect almost every Sierra Leonean.
Matters are made worse by a worsening inflation and a foreign exchange debacle that have hallmarked the country’s economy.
Observers in the media and the public have argued seriously that Sierra Leone’s economy is said to be among the least in the world.
These growing socio-economic challenges are enough to let the former President stand with Samura Kamara to fight for a common goal, but his latest stance shows that he is not with him but with the ruling party despite the killings, rape, torture and disenfranchisement.