In African politics particularly Sierra Leone, propaganda, Intimidation and Diplomacy usually are the best weapons for weak governments that want to stay in power.
A government is weak if it fails to provide security and cater for the welfare needs of their people especially food, electricity, health and education and other services.
Owing to the unquenchable thirst for power, politicians peddle lofty and sugar-coated promises during campaigns and rallies taking the people by their emotional and instinctual urges for votes. Politicians use propaganda to come to power and also use it to stabilise their regimes at the people’s peril.
But, they employ more of it when it is evident that they have failed the people. Such tactics mirror the current PAOPA regime which used propaganda to take the reins of state command by promising to lessen the people’s suffering.
Provision of food is the main priority for the PAOPA regime, according to promises, as the people’s rally songs in 2018 showed that they were hungry and needed a government that can solve that problem.
Then opposition leader, Julius Maada Bio now President of Sierra Leone expressed his resentment about the price of food which he promised to put down if he was voted in. A Before 2018, 50kg bag of rice was NLe200 or Le200, 000 (two hundred thousand Leones) the equivalent of approximately $20 at that time, and President Bio was not comfortable with such situation according to an interview granted at an international news channel.
“The people of Sierra Leone do not deserve to buy a bag of rice at Le200, 000,” he assured voters so that he could get their votes.
It was a bait which the people swallowed without any waste of time especially when the then running mate, Juldeh Jalloh was trumpeted as a rice importer and a long-standing businessman.
Within a week after Bio was declared winner of the elections, people rushed to Rutile town in search of rice which sources said had come down to NLe50 or Le50, 000 (fifty thousand Leones).
It however turned out to be a mere hoax with the people returning home empty-handed, and it was the first cheap propaganda ever to be peddled by top SLPP politicians.
Ex-finance minister, Jacob Jusu Saffa also played with the people’s emotions when he promised to offer a bread-and-butter economy meaning all will be rosy throughout.
But, all of a sudden, the lies were exposed when international reports rate Sierra Leone as one of the hungriest countries in the world. It is under Bio’s watch that a 50kg bag of rice hovers between Le1,000, 000 (one million Leones and Le1, 500, 000 (one million, five hundred thousand Leones), prompting tough feedback from the people including his South-Eastern brothers and sisters.
The ex-finance minister, Saffa himself admitted his government’s failures in a Whatsapp group known as ‘Green Revolution’ that they had failed the people of Sierra Leone especially those in the South-East regions, strongholds of the ruling party.
Saffa blamed it on the PAOPA regime for creating more ministries, departments and agencies as well as foreign ministries into which a huge chunk of the public expenditure goes. President Bio divided the Education Ministry into two as the Ministry of Basic and Senior School Education is quite different from the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education.
Ministry of Lands Housing and the Environment was also split into two since the Lands Ministry is different from the Ministry of Environment.
Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs is also similarly separated as there is a Ministry of Social Welfare and Gender Affairs Ministry. The list is endless, and hundreds of personnel were needed to run the newly created institutions which produce very weak results with economic hardship felt everywhere.
It only means jobs for the boys and a bloated public expenditure, and Saffa, as then Finance Minister had a genuine cause to worry.
He feared that they would not win June, 2023 election if the situation remained as it was, and it came to pass as Bio did not make it in the ballot box according reports by local and international election observation missions, but forced his way through.
However, the ex-finance minister is now out of the scene in SLPP’s second term.
Government blundered in several areas, but inflation remains the worst as prices of basic food stuff soar at an alarming rate at every tick of the clock. Even Voters in SLPP strongholds too became jittery about a second term since it was clear that the majority is no longer in need of the ruling party.
It became clear that he only way to restore confidence in them is to propagate the two-term (10-year) rule for every President that comes to power although that is the exception and not the rule. In a democracy, a President is voted in for either four or five years depending on a country’s constitution.
In the US’s constitution, a President is voted in for four years and five years according to Sierra Leone’s.
The President steps down after his tenure expires and come back to the people to seek fresh mandate. He would be voted in again if he delivers on his promises, but one who abuses public confidence will be ignored as it is the case with ex-US President, Donald Trump.
He did not return to the White House after his first term (2016-2020) since he failed to portray the greatness of the United States. Even the United Kingdom which has an unwritten constitution, the Prime Minister serves for a term of five years and seeks re-election after stepping down.
July 4, this year has been set aside as a day of voting in Britain as the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has sought His Majesty’s permission to dissolve parliament.
He would go back to Downing Street if he gets the people’s mandate for the second time or goes out of power if he loses the electoral battle.
It is exactly all what democracy is about as Presidents go out after their tenure when the people no longer need them. The one-term phenomenon did not only happen in the United States, a country with the most civilised and mature democracy but also occurred in several African countries with Liberia, Ghana, Zambia and Nigeria being recent examples.
Ex-Presidents George Opong Weah of Liberia, John M ahama of Ghana, Edgar Lungu of Zambia and GoodLuck Jonathan of Nigeria ruled once and stepped down when they lost the trust and confidence of their people.
It is bitter pill to swallow in two-term democracies owing to the taunts, provocations and naggings of a President’s party members and his people, but the interest of democracy should take precedence for peace and stability.
During a summit of African leaders at the White House, US President, Joe Biden cautioned six African leaders to concede defeat and congratulate winners for proper democratic and peace consolidation. He issued the advice to leaders in countries where election dates were close by.
Even if other African Presidents heed to the advice, Sierra Leone’s PAOPA regime takes a different path since they have brainwashed their people into believing that, in a democracy, a President goes for 10 years come what may.
The propaganda, without any doubt, has failed as the people of Sierra Leone even the last man in the last village now know that Presidents are voted for five years and not 10 years.
Just months in early 2018, the PAOPA propaganda was radically replaced with intimidation and brutality which went on throughout with opposition politicians on the wrong end.
Top APC (All People’s Congress) members who were ministers, in the past government, were arrested and detained and their estate forfeited to the state after protracted investigations by defunct commissions of inquiry. The commissions of inquiry, according to public opinion, were Kangaroo-styled since they lacked rules of evidence and the constitutional instruments used to establish them were allegedly faulty.
Those who could not put with the shock easily succumbed to death with former education minister and the Chairman, National Telecommunication Authority, Minkailu Bah and Momoh Conteh respectively are cases in perspective. The intimidation does not stop there.
Another prominent opposition politician, Mohamed Kamarainba Mansaray, leader of Alliance Democratic Party could not take part in the election after he was nabbed and nailed for sexual offence. He was arrested at the time the ‘Hands Off Our Girls’ was launched in Sierra Leone to women and girls safe from sexual violence. It was an initiative of Sierra Leone’s First Lady, Fatima Bio.
He was released after the June election had been conducted.
APC members, supporters and sympathisers were also targeted for brutal arrests, raids and crackdowns on weak tip-offs and concocted allegations or the slightest suspicions. The harassment was also taken to parliament.
10 APC parliamentarians were forced out of parliament and replaced with SLPP runners-up after two high courts in Freetown contemporaneously handed down judgments in May, 2019.
Intermittent police invasions of parliament and physical assaults of APC law makers were common sceneries throughout Bio’s five-year term.
The move was to instill fear in them and silence critical voices in the legislative house.
The mission was achieved as most of the bad laws Sierra Leone saw in recent past were passed by the last parliament. Though intimidation and harassment was sustained for a long time, it was also a total failure for the ruling party as evidenced by the people’s votes in June last year.
The declaration of Bio as winner of the elections ended in a fiasco as the opposition party and the international community as well majority of Sierra Leoneans do not recognise his government.
Bio was sworn in the day he was announced winner, but no inauguration was held creating big doubt in SLPP camp. Travel restrictions and funding cut have been imposed on his government while an election probe underway.
Amid intimidation failure, Chief Minister, David Monina Sengeh recently took to bizzare ways of diplomacy by engaging the members of the diplomatic community in Sierra Leone particularly the British High Commissioner, Lisa Chesney and US and EU Ambassador, David Hunt and Manuel Muller respectively to curry favour and international recognition for the PAOPA regime which the opposition leader refer to as “ethnic militant cabal.”
His moves also do not seem to succeed as success means the deathnell of democracy in Sierra Leone.