This is my first time experiencing an election period in Sierra Leone as an adult. Judging by how the campaign process is panning out I haven’t experienced such a dull and uninspiring election campaign period in my entire life. How do the other parties plan on informing the people on how they plan on doing things different from the SLPP government headed by Julius Maada Bio?
What would you do if you are to find out that both the SLPP and APC are playing games with the people and nation of Sierra Leone? What would you do if you know that both parties expect us to elect them always despite the fact that it is only them that have ruled this country since independence hence are equally responsible for all the issues we are complaining about today?
Yes, I expect you to be looking at alternatives to the APC and SLPP.
All across Freetown, which is also apparently the same in the provinces going by what’s on social media, the word on the street is that the 24 June 2023 elections, which is 17 days from today, is a sham, a masquerade. The elections had long been decided, we and the international community – that is if they really really don’t know (which I seriously doubt), are just being made a sport of by the two parties that have ruled us since 1961.
Given the lacklustre campaign period that is defined as an attack-less football match between two contenders and the main opposition still not being able to address the issues the electorates now believe that the election is a hoax being perpetrated by the ruling party and the main opposition in full view of the international community.
The whole thing is being stage managed by the APC and SLPP to trick the people into choosing either one of them as the lesser of two evils instead of trying a whole lot different direction from either party, with the international elections monitors as their witnesses against we the struggling masses of Sierra Leone.
With both main contending parties and leading personalities in Julius Maada Bio and Samura Kamara not running their campaign addressing the issues that they will be dealing with on behalf of the people and state, with no one knowing or having heard how Samura Kamara plans on solving the issues that have made the society fed up with the Bio government apart from that abridged A6 pamphlet they called their manifesto, and with Bio, who if he was really sincere would tell you himself that his regime had failed the people, all of a sudden in an upbeat mood showing signs that he hopes to win the elections despite all that has happened across Sierra Leone and in government since 2018, the electorate say they don’t trust either party and think that voters should consider this election as the nation’s true Independence Day.
If we want to get rid of the APC and SLPP from our governance space, this is the time. We can only do it through voting in the best interest of the country, not these parties. We believe that both parties are playing games with us. Bio is not campaigning on his platform or on the issues and we are yet to hear from Dr Samura Kamara on how he plans on fixing things.
Can you imagine Bio and Jusu Saffa really saying that he has accomplished everything in his 2018 manifesto? To think that the APC has not been able to adequately and effectively show promise by promise how the New Direction failed the people based on that 2018 manifesto is really causing us a lot of worries. By failing to show how Bio failed us, the SLPP is now bold to release another manifesto making more outlandish claims. This really is a farce and has to stop. This is not an example of the electioneering process at its best or ideal.
We believe that going by what these people are calling campaigns that discusses that “the APC executives are all from Kamalo”, somewhere up the line a deal had been long struck between these two parties that have ruled us since 1962 to keep Bio in power for another five years to save their skins, their properties, and to avoid possible future civil problems should the SLPP lose.
Since they both want to play games with us the suffering masses (you know when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers), the 24 June elections is an Independence Day moment for us the voters of Sierra Leone. This is our moment to instead of voting for either SLPP or APC as they are expecting that we do something completely unexpected and elect for the first time a president that is not from the APC or SLPP.
This nation cannot afford another term under Bio with the way things have turned out these past five years. If we re-elect Bio and the SLPP it is as if we are saying that we have handed over the entire state’s bank account to them to do as they please. Rice, based on the year on year rise in the price of a bag of rice under Bio since 2018 to date, will be sold at NLe3,500 per bag five years from now.
Now imagine how they have run things during their first term when they were still hoping for a second term mandate. If the SLPP performed this badly during their first term how bold would they be if re-elected for their last term to complete their theft of the state?
We believe that something is up that we don’t know about that we do think Bai Koroma, Maada Bio, Samura Kamara and the international community know about that they are not telling us. Whatever it is, it is we the people of Sierra Leone, not the APC or SLPP, not these politicians, that will suffer. It is time to be independent of both the SLPP and APC.
If you think that they have sold the game and are playing with our future then we should vote for anyone other than the APC or SLPP candidate. If they think that we have no choice but to elect either one of them, then we should establish that we can go with any other candidate. There are independent candidates, even other presidential candidates other than Maada Bio and Samura Kamara. The time has come for the nation and people of Sierra Leone to wean themselves of the SLPP and APC albatrosses hanging on our collective necks. The time has seriously come for us to vote both the APC and SLPP out of our lives and mark this new trend as our true Independence Day.
Since the advent of the Julius Maada Bio led government of Sierra Leone our problems have gone from bad to worse, with the regime failing to keep President Bio’s campaign promises to the people. While we trust that Bio had good intentions and plans for the people and country however he allowed his subordinates to stifle his vision for Sierra Leone by the many instances of corruption that were unearthed during the Auditor General’s Reports of 2018 to 2021, the latter for which the Auditor General Lara Taylor Pearce and her deputy Tamba Momoh were suspended pending a trial by a tribunal that was set up after their suspension, which action is against set constitutional provision for their removal. After 18 months Lara and Tamba are yet to face their accusers.
We the youth of this country have declared 24 June 2023 as Independence Day. All the elections slated for 24 June present our moment to free ourselves from the burdens the ruling government has created for the country for which we see no end or solutions in sight. It is our Independence Day to free ourselves of the oppression, violations and violence of the past five years under the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) government.
It must be recalled that Sierra Leone was granted Independence by Great Britain on 27 April 1961. Since then we have never felt or been so oppressed or neglected by any regime as we have under the President Bio led government.
To reclaim our freedom and restore our dignity and the country’s reputation, we have decided as a people united to do away with the reasons for our collective suffering and hardship, the regime as headed by Maada Bio and co and the lukewarm APC that we are expecting to offer serious challenge to the SLPP. Instead of being the solutions to ours and country’s problems the SLPP regime has done more to add to them, with the APC government in waiting not seizing the opportunities and moments to expose and counter the SLPP on behalf of the people.
Since 2018 not one of our elected leaders can be singled out for standing up and speaking against the SLPP’s excesses in government these past five years with the exception of Adebayor. We have lost faith in our leaders as the solution to our governance problems.
My country people time has come for us to be real with ourselves. We now see government as the reason for all the issues we have been forced to deal with these past five years. Instead of lifting their hands to help or assist the struggling masses, our brothers and sisters in positions of power in this regime have exacerbated our lot.
The only way to free the people and nation from such a backward state of affairs is for the youth across the country to come as one united front and vote with theirs and the nation’s interest in mind. Real Independence comes through the ballot box hence the responsibility is on the youth and other voters to do the needful on 24 June 2023. There is no other peaceful yet guaranteed way of getting rid of this nonperforming regime and their lackey main opposition than by voting them all out for a new crop of leaders, not one formed out of the Siaka Stevens mould.
It is very important for us to vote on 24 June 2023, which day marks the beginning of the end of any government of Sierra Leone that would promise one thing yet do the other, which is even worse than what they had promised to get rid of including the perpetrators.
The country is being called upon to take tabs of all the promises all those hoping for re-election made and hold them up against what they delivered; if they did what they should have to you; then by all means vote for them again. But if they failed to deliver to taste, then do the needful for the sake of sweet mama Salone, not for your party, region, or tribe. We are all members of the same tribe, region and party, which we call Sierra Leone.
Our Independence Day from political and economic hardship has been five years in the making. Seventeen days from now we will know if the people and nation mean business, or a repeat of the same old problems going back 62 years. Lonta!