ex-President, Ernest Bai Koroma (Adebayoh)
One of Sierra Leone’s musical legends, Emerson Bockarie, had long raised the red flag in what we are now witnessing in the country. His album, Munku Boss Pan Matches, released few years into the All People’s Congress (APC) second term in office, had clearly catalogued a number of failings in the country under the APC and Ernest Bai Koroma.
Most of what he stated in the album was taken with a pinch of salt by many Sierra Leoneans, especially those that had access to the national cake.But with the revelations coming out now, coupled with the current hardship even prior to the election, every right thinking Sierra Leone will know that indeed Emerson was a prophet. He has a thorough grasp of what the state of affairs was like in the country under the red guys.
Even before the advent of the new administration, the APC had announced a recession due to the bad state of the economy.
International financial institutions had left the country over what they had referred to as mismanagement and lack of fiscal discipline. Waivers and tax holidays, to corrupt and unscrupulous foreign business, were the order of the day.
Rampant Buying of Property and Shares by Ernest Koroma (Adebayoh)
Munku Boss Pan Matches has mimicked that the former President, Ernest Bai Koroma, was engaged in the rampant buying of shares in various companies, lands,estates and other properties both at home and abroad.
It is no news that the former President will go down on record as the most extravagant President that has ever governed the country.He was noted to having engaged in this rampant buying when the average Sierra Leonean was living in penury, with less than a dollar a day, and access to basic social services is still a problem while education was at a nose dive.
The question that Emerson ended up in asking is, where was the former President getting all those monies from to engage in that extravagant buying of property?
Silencing and Politicization of all State Institutions
Emerson’s Munku Boss Pan Matches has also exposed the attempt by the APC to silence almost all sectors of the society. He referred to the ‘de Pa en vex’ to refer to how institutions like the Judiciary, Media, the entertainment industry and other people holding the trust of the people have danced to the tune of the Pa.
The musical legend had exposed these institutions as they had concerned themselves with doing what the Pa and his regime wanted against what is right or established by law.
The removal of the sitting Vice President and the country’s highest court, Supreme Court, supporting the action of the President, was just one among many instances the musical guru had mentioned.
He succeeded in creating in the minds of Sierra Leoneans that the country, under Ernest Koroma, was in a hopeless state wherein the only hope is God as state institutions had all bowed before Ernest and the APC.
Over concentration on Roads & Free Health Care
Emerson’s album had also questioned former President Koroma’s over reliance on road construction against other competing demands in the country, especially with regards the social service sectors.
He cited the poor health and poor educational systems and youth employment as huge challenges that were abandoned by the APC in favour of road construction.
The musical legend had also questioned the fake Free Health Care, which, like the road building projects, has not got value for money.Emerson highlighted the fact that the government was doing very little around the roads and the free health care projects amidst a very heavily loaded propaganda.
Friends, families and party supporters, he went on, were singing Hosanna because they were directly benefiting from the national cake while the masses remain in squalor and hardship.
Party cards, according to the lyrical guru, were a criterion for employment. Stolen wealth was used to buy property while the rest was lavished on women.
In his description of Ernest Koroma and the APC, the musical legend did not leave out the fetish and witchcraft manipulation of the people by the regime.He laughed at what he referred to as the perceived cleverness of the regime, which, he noted, is under the Almighty.
The APC’s tactics of spraying money around few and the fake nature of projects, such as the Bumbuna hydro and the fibre optic, were also not left out by Emerson.
In all of this, Emerson was clearly able to expose the rampant corruption and plundering of state resources by the APC, adding that it was done with naked impunity and with no fear of God and the suffering masses.
He predicted a doom for the APC and Ernest Koroma at the polls when he stated that ‘San go comot pan dem’.
Another thing Emerson succinctly succeeded in doing in this album was creating the impression that the economy is already in a battered shape due to the ‘gbasigbasi’ of the APC.
Most importantly, according to the rapper, was the fact that the situation was so hopeless that no one was capable of standing up against the APC ills, not even our moral guarantors, the media and civil society.
His hope for a change in the state of affairs of the country was only possible through divine intervention. The hope was very strong and time bound.
Indeed we saw how it all ended. The APC would not have lost power if it were for money, juju and what ever influence. But, as Emerson stated, God above had done everything. What the APC had amassed illegitimately will definitely go in vain.
Now that judgment day is just around the corner, Ernest and Koroma and his team will definitely face the people when accounting for their stewardship.
It is our hope that Emerson will continue to be the last man standing; he will continue to expose whatever ‘ranka’ the politicians will want to engage in. No weapon fashioned against him will prosper.