By: Sayoh Kamara
“Empty stomachs do not vote for empty promises.” This is what President Julius Maada Bio, the newly elected Janjaweed National Executive and the entire membership of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) should know.
Therefore, when President Bio stood before his party’s loyalists at the just concluded National Delegates Conference and boasted that he would deliver a record three-straight election victory, he may have spoken with confidence, but certainly not with realism. For in today’s Sierra Leone, hunger has become the loudest opposition voice, echoing across hamlets, villages, towns and cities. No government survives a hungry population; not in history, not in reality, and not in 2028.
Across marketplaces and homes, families are rationing rice; in farming communities, parents struggle to put even a single daily meal on the table. This is not the picture of a nation ready to reward incumbent government with another term. Instead, it is the tragic portrait of a people who feel betrayed by broken promises of affordable food, jobs, and dignity. In 2018 and 2023, Sierra Leoneans gave Julius Maada Bio and his SLPP their trust, hoping for heavenly transformation. Instead, they have received hell through rising prices, vanishing opportunities, hopelessness and empty vibes.
Elections are won not on speeches but on bread and butter; not on applauses at conferences and meetings but on the survival of households and the hope of the young generation. If the SLPP cannot feed the people, it cannot and should not keep their votes. Come 2028, it will be hunger that will decide; not even the APC, not the NGC, not any coalition of political parties may well be the most decisive candidate on the ballot; hunger will vote the ruling party out.
It was the late Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso who once stated: “A hungry man is not a free man,” and indeed, Sierra Leoneans know too well what that means come 2028.
When hunger sits at the ballot box, no slogan from the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) can chase it away, nor convince the voters that all is well. When they shall have managed to walk distances in abject hunger, they are sure to pour that frustration out at ballot box by casting their votes against the party that has kept them depreciated and hungry for ten years.
That will certainly be the action of Sierra Leoneans in reaction to President Bio’s statement at his party’s recently concluded National Delegates Conference that he will secure a record three-straight elections victory for his party in 2028. For his loyal supporters, the statement was electrifying; but for the majority of Sierra Leoneans struggling with hunger and hardship, it was insulting and it was nothing short of an empty boast from a President who has failed spectacularly to deliver on his election campaign promises.
This declaration, inasmuch as it appears to have rattled the opposition All People’s Congress (APC) party and raised eyebrows in civil society organizations fighting hard to ensure electoral transformation and justice; beyond partisan noise, the reality is glaring: a third-straight SLPP victory is impossible under fair and transparent elections.
THE BIG FIVE FAILED CHANGERS: Bio’s 2023 campaign was anchored on the so-called Big Five Changers. Today, they stand exposed as broken promises:
Food Security: WFP reports that 70% of Sierra Leoneans are food insecure. Food prices have doubled, leaving rice and cassava out of reach for many.
Human Capital Development: UNICEF notes only 16% of primary schools meet minimum standards, despite the much-trumpeted Free Quality Education.
Job Creation: Youth unemployment is above 60%, leaving thousands of graduates jobless.
Good Governance: The 2023 elections were riddled with irregularities, according to EU and Carter Center observers.
Digital Transformation: Internet penetration and ICT reforms remain symbolic, with rural areas cut off.
These ‘Big Five’ changed nothing; they are sheer monuments of deception.
A NATION BETRAYED BY EMPTY PROMISES:
Inflation stood at 44% in 2024, one of the highest in West Africa. The Leone’s depreciation has eroded incomes, making survival a daily struggle. Families now spend over 60% of income on food, leaving nothing for healthcare, education, or savings.
History teaches us that no regime survives on broken promises. The SLPP cannot of course break that record of wining Sierra Leonean votes again on broken promises. “We cannot eat speeches. Let them come in 2028 and see if we will vote for hunger again,” Adama, a trader at Dove Cot Market said.
THE SHADOW OF 2023 AND THE ROAD TO 2028:
President Bio’s confidence in 2028 is not based on performance but on the precedent of the 2023 elections that was marred by violence, rigging, manipulation and an absolute lack in transparency. That election handed him a controversial second term, but Sierra Leoneans have not forgotten and they are still reeling over it.
The mood has shifted. From Makeni to Kailahun, from Bo to Koinadugu and from Karene to Kono, from the Western Urban and Rural Districts to Pujehun, frustration simmers. Mothers cannot afford basic food; youths languish in ghettos surviving on Kush and ecstatic drug (Tramadol) and salaries of civil servant vanishing through the windows of inflation. Across Sierra Leone, the people’s patience has run out completely and they are just waiting for 2028 to strike the right musical cord.
WHY PRESIDENT BIO’S DREAM IS SMOKY?
This is simple. When hunger becomes the main opposition in an election, no ruling party survives at the ballot. Added to that, no propaganda can fill empty plates; not even if they use the power of incumbency using state resources to buy votes with bags of rice and cash to the youths to exacerbate their drunkenness and ecstasy thereby pushing them in violence. It will collapse because jobless youths will not reward hopelessness; the people are ready to guard and defend their votes and also because Sierra Leoneans have learned the bitter lessons of 2023. “Silence is not acceptance. Hunger is not loyalty. Disappointment is not support.”
Sierra Leoneans have certainly learnt a bitter lesson from a cyclic system of governance that revolves only between and amongst fanatics and headless loyalists – even when they cannot bring to reality the changes their SLPP promised-from the promise of “A New Direction” to the present tongue-wagging “Big Five Changers” which as a matter of fact has cemented the lies and deception of President Bio and the SLPP, this failed President is boasting of securing a third term win for his party which by inference, will means a continuation of a Bio presidency.
But Sierra Leoneans will not forget the widespread poverty and unemployment that continues to deepen, and these cannot be glossed over with campaign slogans.
The people are disappointed and are increasingly vocal about their dissatisfaction, and most view 2028 as their chance to correct the course.
Sierra Leoneans are determined for fairness and transparency which is why they preparing their vigilance over the election across all levels. It is also certain that dignified civil society organizations will commit to have their eyes on the ball in the electoral pitch to ensure that no foul play is overlooked, but is reported to a Reality Assistance Arbiter (RAR) in the form of the international community to give a determinant; and the electorates are now more alert to the pitfalls of flawed processes. This time round, like with the Premier League Virtual Assistant Referee (VAR), the people are ready to activate and make effective all known observers with tangible evidence to prove electoral robbery and any other act of elections malfeasance.
There is also the very strong opposition factor. Despite its internal challenges, the APC and other opposition forces are positioning themselves to capitalize on the SLPP’s failures so as to win the majority votes that will bring them to power and therefore will have to sit up in order to protect and defend votes cast in its favour so as not to disappoint their supporters and Sierra Leoneans for the second time in a row.
THE DETERMINED VERDICT:
President Bio’s boast of three-straight victories is sheer political bravado, not reality. His government has failed to deliver on bread-and-butter issues. Sierra Leoneans are preparing to use 2028 as a referendum on his failures and inability to rule.
If elections are free and fair, the SLPP will not just lose; it will be punished at the ballot box. The so-called “three-straight election victory dream” will collapse like every false promise before it; like the iconic Cotton Tree fell on the same weight of lies and despair. In that regard therefore, 2028 will not be a coronation, rather, it will be a reckoning.