There is no better time than now for our father to step down in the interest of peace and national cohesion. Our present situation is worse than years leading to the 11-year fratricidal war that did not benefit the nation.
Our present reality is that a year after the announcement of the result of the 24th June, 2023 elections, things are more difficult this past year than they were for the five years from 2018 to 2023. Things have been harder this past year than the past five years combined.
With the current trajectory of our economic and socio-political realities, which many people that have been following such development have said is not going to improve anytime soon. It is high time The Pa did the honourable thing of step aside for new leaders to take over.
The current situation calls for a more capable and dedicated leader with an equally dedicated team that can tackle such difficulties head on and without concern for who will get hurt once we start doing things according to procedure and the rule of law, all in the interest of the people and state.
This is not the time for partisan politics as the economy is very sick and in urgent need of a doctor to heal its many self-inflicted wounds.
Since The Pa has shown that he is unwilling and incapable of making the tough decisions necessary for the success of the economy, the time has come for him and his friends to get out of the way.
Times are hard, but our situation is not changing for the better, neither is there anything encouraging to point to that would raise our collective hope and act as an encouragement that things will get better.
Qualifying this premise, a cursory glance at the present prices of goods and services, including the exchange rate between the US dollar and the Leone, has revealed that many of them have gone up more than six times their pre-2024 levels.
For example, a bag of rice, the nation’s staple food, was at Le200 when the past government handed over to the current one.
Today, the price for the same bag of rice stands at Le1,500 almost eight times more than previous their previous cost six years ago.
The exchange rate of the dollar to the Leone then was $100 to NLe750; today one would have to fork out close to Le2,400 for $100, a rise that is more than triple the 2018 rate.
Sadly, salary for the majority of the people, especially those working for government, has remained the same, with many people going months without pay or getting paid weeks after the expected date.
There is a backlog of salary payment for thousands of civil servants whose only other recourse to getting paid is by cutting corners and getting involved in stealing from their employer, which act is evident after the Auditor General and her team would have gone through the financial records at government ministries, departments, and agencies.
There is presently no saving grace for our embattled leader as every promise made has failed. Even those that seemed to have been working have, over time, failed because of alleged corruption by misusing state funds.
The recent admission by the head of West African Examinations Council in Sierra Leone that many students will sit the West African Senior School Certificate Examination has not gone unnoticed.
At the bottom of it all, this is corruption.
The parliamentary committee providing oversight for the education sector has ordered the investigation the WAEC accountant who should have been relieved of his position by now based on that same order.
Not long ago, The Pa and some of his officials openly admitted that the country’s economy has some cracks that seem difficult to fix.
Such confession was enough for any caring leader to step down and out of the way for either someone from among his friends or our neighbours or community to bring their expertise to bear on the matter.
But not the PAOPA leader; he is confident that he can work something out.
The principles of the free market economy are not based on luck but rather on the application of the very principles. Circumventing them leads to stress on the economy leading further to runaway prices of goods and services set by a poor and desperate business or trader class.
In Proverbs 14:12, scripture says “There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end leads to death and destruction.”
The Pa has tried and failed; it is laudable to keep trying, but not where there is a time limitation for what you have to accomplish.
This stubbornness to keep going despite the facts is not of faith; it is based on The Pa trying to do two uninterrupted runs without having to stop, step aside and come back to try again. His insistence that he should continue to lead the country adds more problems to existing problems.
A lot of his children go to be hungry every day, with many of the young sisters forced to streets at night to eke a living. It is certain that situation will be improved when the will of the people is established.