“No Bio, No SLPP,” is currently the most favourite chant by PAOPA supporters as most SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) supporters intensify the call for President Julius Maada Bio to go. All is not well within the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) as the struggle for power has surfaced again with senior politicians at the fore.
For the PAOPAs, Bio will still remain SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) leader and Sierra Leone’s President amid heavy public backlash on government’s abysmal failures in the economy, health, infrastructure, education, agriculture, security, peace and national cohesion and the list continues.
A PAOPA core supporter who refused to show his name said Bio was the only President that would give them what they needed, and that could be the destruction of the rival party, All People’s Congress (APC) through persistent brutalisation, oppression, harassment, intimidation, indiscriminate arrest and detention of APC politicians and supporters.
Many say the aim is to keep APC out of politics to pave the way for the creation of a one-party state in Sierra Leone as attempted Dr Albert Margai in 1965.
Once this mission is accomplished, it is a big success for Bio and his PAOPA project.
PAOPA’s objectives have been summed up by a leading opposition figure (name withheld for fear of reprisals) who said “PAOPA-SLPP had as its objectives shutting down of APC and establishing of a permanent Mende hegemony in Sierra Leone.”
SLPP Chairman, Dr Prince Harding who is also a core PAOPA had declared that only Bio would determine who will be Sierra Leone’s next President, a move seen as a clear attack on the voters on whom ultimate political power rests.
According to Sierra Leone’s constitution, it is the people of Sierra Leone that should determine who should be President as opposed to the PAOPA ideology.
The constitution says “sovereignty belongs to the people of Sierra Leone from whom government, through the constitution, derives its powers, authority and legitimacy.”
In furthering the PAOPA mission, Dr Harding was not hesitant to confront members of the international community particularly the election observers who he once referred to as “Academic Dwarves.”
In other words, the phrase could easily mean the observers are incompetent and do not know what they are doing.
The mission to endlessly stay in power has been clearly evidenced through holding of sham elections, refusing to give up power amid glaring defeat and interfering with the laws of the land with a focus on the highest law, the constitution.
The PAOPA movement has no respect for the country’s laws and due processes as shown by removal of 10 APC law makers from parliament in a day, imposition of Speaker of parliament, muzzling of the judiciary, the security forces and the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone as well as other important state institutions.
Enactment of obnoxious and draconian laws especially the Public Elections Act, the Proportional Representation Regulations, the Political Parties Regulation Commission and the Local Government Act all in 2022 to suit PAOPA’s comfort is another way to shut down opposition politicians.
The 11.9 percent population quota set by the Proportional Representation law kicked out such smaller political parties as the Unity Party, the People’s Movement for Democratic Change, National Grand Coalition, Coalition For Change, Alliance Democratic Party, People’s Democratic Party, United National People’s Party and others.
Such moves made it easy for PAOPA SLPPs to have their way in the June-24 elections, and would also use similar methods for subsequent ones.
PAOPA is a small fraction of Young men and women backed up by few party elders who believe in the acquisition and exercise of power by means of all possible coercion.
The movement is consistent, insistent and persistent in its existence and their demands: they go rough and rugged for anything they wanted and their political existence would be endless if their mission is accomplished. It will continue even when President Julius Maada Bio shall have left the political stage if at all he would.
However, the party’s stalwarts especially those who have been kicked out of their offices wanted to see President Julius Maada Bio’s back out of SLPP owing to what they call a stain on the party’s image through Bio’s brutal rule.
It was under SLPP that opposition politicians and supporters were killed in large numbers as indicated by incidents in Makeni, Lunsar, Tombo, Waterloo and Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital.
Senior APC politicians and supporters were also arrested, detained or jailed on trumped up charges just to keep them silent.
Extrajudicial killings were also widespread with the SLPP spokesman, Lahai Lawrence Leema at the centre of the allegations. Leema who was deputy internal affairs minister was said to have masterminded most of the unlawful killings carried out by unidentified gun men during August 10, 2022 when the people took to the streets against a cost-of-living crisis.
To justify their killings, President Julius Maada Bio described the protesters as “terrorists” and “insurrectionists” and the main opposition, All People’s Congress was also branded as a “terrorist institution” to undermine its existence in Sierra Leone’s political landscape.
In furtherance of their political ambition, the PAOPA movement also constantly threw challenges at the International community who they suspected of taking sides with the opposition.
During a visit to his almameter in America, President Julius Maada Bio accused US authorities of ordering him to interfere with the elections by calling the Chief Electoral Commissioner not to announce the Results.
It was an allegation that the United States never took with a pinch of salt in light of its role in the protection and promotion of democratic governance in the world.
However, Bio’s allegation against the US is to make the world believe that the US is undermining democracy in Sierra Leone, a country which should strengthen democratic governance in the world.
It is for the US to fight back and restore her reputation.
However, the SLPP old guards are not comfortable with PAOPA’s smear campaign of a party known for intellectuals decades ago and taking it back is the only way out.
Sources say SLPP’s top-notch politicians (name withheld) are canvassing political support from the South-East to end the PAOPA rule in the party. Saffa was a PAOPA hardliner that threw his weight behind President Bio to see that he became President of Sierra Leone.
It came to pass as Bio won the election and rewarded Saffa by appointing him Finance Minister and later elevated him to Chief Minister, the third most important post in Bio’s executive, but such privilege was not destined to last long.
Saffa who many saw as Bio’s blue-eyed boy in the hay day days was left out in the new dispensation following the declaration of President Julius Maada Bio winner of the June polls, a move that beat down his imagination.
Like Saffa, Alie Kabba another key PAOPA strategist was made Foreign Affairs Minister in 2018, but reduced to ambassadorial status few years later and was also conspicuously absent in Bio’s second government.
Lead author of the Governance Transition Team report, Professor David John Francis also succumbed to similar fate.
He had gone back to London to continue his lectures at Bradford University, and his come back is imminent.
They are certain that there will sanity in the SLPP only when PAOPA dominance comes to an end, but they are sure to be resisted by the PAOPA young guys who support ‘NO BIO, NO SLPP’ campaign.