The June 24 general elections is fast approaching and many grassroots people at Ataya bases, public transport and many places across the country have been holding heated discussions on four key topical issues that will be on the general political platforms for both the incumbent president Julius Maada Bio from the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and the lead opposition contender from the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC), Dr Samura Mathew Kamara.
The general electorate across the country is also expected to use the outcomes of these four social issues to choose the next president of the country because most of the grassroots people either undergo hard times and loss of fortunes from these issues or have their friends, relatives or dependents experiencing the same impacts from them. They are; ‘Illegal Migrations and Overseas Travelling for Domestic and Casual Workers’, ‘Bad Legislations’, ‘Bread and Butter Issues’ and ‘Education’.
‘ILLEGAL MIGRATION’- The issue of Sierra Leonean being tortured and maltreated as domestic and casual workers in foreign countries is not new to the June 24 elections campaigns. It started way back under the leadership of ex-president Ernest Bai Koroma and has since increased under the current leadership of President Julius Maada Bio of the ruling SLPP. It is mainly caused by rogue overseas travelling agents across the country who use the scheme to extort money from small businessmen and women who want to escape the hard economic situation in the country to find greener pastures in countries like United Arab Emirates in Dubai, Turkey, Germany and other nations.
However, their hopes of finding greener pastures ended up putting them in misery and pain as most of them especially women ended up being used as sex slaves, house girls, baby sitters and many other such unskilled jobs. Despite the many cries of these suffering Sierra Leoneans in other nations, both the former APC government and the current SLPP leadership is still unable to adequately address this issues and put in place strategies and measures that cut down on the human trafficking business and punish the rogue agents who mostly vanish into thin air after collecting thousands of United States dollars from the people.
‘BAD LEGISLATION’ – Another issue that will be on the political plate for both presidential candidates is that of bad legislations being passed by the current Parliament that have been perceived by many people across the country as either aiding the re-election bid of the incumbent presidential candidate from the ruling SLPP or to stifle the smooth operations of the opposition parties especially the main opposition APC.
The opposition APC is also alleging that most of the controversial laws were passed towards the start of the upcoming June 24 electioneering period, or at times when the electorates were not expecting it.
At present many south-easterners are quietly frowning at the passing and implementation of the amended Sexual Offence Law under the leadership of President Julius Maada Bio and have advised him to review the court files of most of their elder brothers who are being convicted of this new law saying that the current government do not have all the necessary infrastructure in place to properly implement the law like a medical diagnostic centre to test whether these victims were actually raped or not.
Unofficial records from the judiciary showed the south-east has the highest number of people incarcerated for sexual penetration or rape across the country, especially elderly people some of whom are over 70 years of age.
In most of his campaign trips to the south-eastern areas, the chiefs and elders in those communities have advised the incumbent presidential candidates from the ruling SLPP, Julius Maada Bio and co., to review some of the files and free some of their brothers, or else they would not support his re-election bid.
However, records have also proved that the main opposition APC was also not able to properly address this issue which led to a high rate of teenage pregnancy among girls across the country.
‘BREAD AND BUTTER ISSUES’- One of the key priority promises in the New Direction manifesto that the ruling SLPP government is yet to fulfil after five years in office is addressing the basic economic bread and butter issues. Despite all the hollering and shouting about achieving 99% of his manifesto promises to the nation, the general populace is still grumbling about hard economic hardship and the high cost of living nationwide with the prices of basic food stuffs and other essential commodities reaching a record high. The ordinary man on the street is currently finding it very hard to get a day’s meal let alone provide the basic three meals a day for their families.
Many people also want to know the status of the new bakery project at Wellington in the eastern part of the capital city and also the status of the Tormabun rice project in the southern region of the country. The people of the country also wanted to know how the presidential candidates from the main opposition APC would fix the economy if they are elected in the June 24 presidential elections.
‘EDUCATION’- notwithstanding the introduction and noise of the free quality education introduced by the current SLPP government, many social analysts are still asking, why is there an increase in the number of street gangs and teenage pregnancy among school going children across the country?
At the moment, the current government is boasting about improving the human resource capacity in the country, but are yet to officially prove how many new students were enrolled and retained at basic and secondary education levels and also at tertiary education level for the high number of unemployed youth nationwide.
They also want to be familiar with policies that the opposition APC presidential candidate Dr Samura Kamara would use to address this issue on the occasion that he is elected as head of state after the upcoming elections.