If there is no war in Sierra Leone, why are the members of the Inter Religious Council of Sierra Leone – IRC-SL busy suing for peace between the APC and SLPP? This was the question asked by concerned citizens who say the religious leaders have failed or passed up on the opportunity to admonish the president to do the honourable thing, instead of seeking to make right what is absolutely wrong with the elections narrative in Sierra Leone.
According to aggrieved citizens, at a time when truth should have been broadcasted from the pulpit, ‘all we got were words of encouragement for a thieving regime’.
The citizens of Sierra Leone that spoke to nightwatch Press said the only peaceful thing for our self-declared “religious leaders” to have done was to pick up the godly conviction to impress on the president and his electoral commissioner to accept the international calls for the release of the results taken on polling day.
By failing to sanction President Bio and the ECSL boss, the Inter Religious Council of Sierra Leone has also joined the queue of leaders who should have the moral courage to admonish our elected leaders but are guilty of woefully failing the people and their mandate from God.
By choosing to make or sue for peace in the absence of a declared war these so-called “men of God” are indeed acknowledging that there is a “de facto war” in the country that has pitted the desperate president and his electoral commissioner on one side against the demanding people and international community on the other hand who are calling for a release of the disaggregated electoral data that the ECSL is still failing or refusing to release. Up to present no polling station knows how voting took place in their locale.
The question on most people’s lips is why didn’t the interreligious council leaders impress it on Bio to do the needful? As religious leaders they, more than any other set of leaders in Sierra Leone, have the moral authority to sanction kings and leaders.
In the Holy Scriptures the prophets of God used to sanction kings and despots, and were ordained for the rise and fall of kingdoms. Such men were not concerned with political correctness or pleasing men instead of God. They certainly should not fear presidents of today who, despite wanting to be despots, don’t wield absolute power as do monarchs.
Sierra Leoneans from all walks of life have reminded nightwatch Press that in ancient times so-called men of God who failed to speak God’s truth to a sinful society would bless the people saying “peace, peace” when the Lord never declared peace for sinners or sinful societies. Peace is the preserve of God, not by the machinations of violent men in the guise of harmless sheep.
What the people of Sierra Leone were hoping the religious leaders would have done was to have a short and intense lecture on stealing and why the Lord is against all manner of stealing, that a thief is equal to the devil, who is also a murderer. A thief worthy of his salt would kill anyone just to be able to make an escape and defer being apprehended.
So, why is the Inter Religious Council so cosy with President Bio’s win to go as far as ignoring calls from our international sponsors and suing for peace instead of demanding that Bio steps down in honour of God’s peace? The answer is simple; they are men or people pleasers, not God pleasers. Such religious leaders have respect for personalities instead of for the word of God. The people say they have lost respect for the IRC of Sierra Leone for failing to speak up for God’s righteousness and justice when it comes to the current elections impasse. If this election victory was of God we should not be at the intersection we are currently at present, they opined.
The people of Sierra Leone and our international friends say the lack of truthful leadership has also hit religious leaders as they passed up on an opportunity to sanction our leader for taking part in the stealing of the general elections, and in so doing uphold God’s righteousness and call for obedience to the rule and procedure of the law.
God is a God of law and justice, and anywhere there is injustice there you will find a dearth of the preaching of the true righteousness of God.
Because our religious leaders have also been blinded by the president and his party’s largesse to their persons and religious orders their actions have also emboldened the nation’s other moral guarantors (the media, CSOs, NGOs, other educated people, etc), who have also been captured by the president, to spread fake news in our local media. Surely, who would publish that Hon Chernor Maju Bah was present when the ECSL boss was handing the ECSL’s elections certificate to Maada Bio?
We expect for there to be a legal response, even from the IMC, for publication of fake news from the man of law (Maju) against such publications.
The people say our religious leaders have fallen victims of the “pay for eye” culture that is rampant across Sierra Leone. The cultural practice of turning a blind eye to wrongdoing all in the hope that the wrongdoer would compensate you has taken religious proportions as our so-called religious leaders have been caught up in its dragnet.
In the scriptures it says that a bribe blinds the eyes of the judges and those giving the bribe. Indeed the lust for financial rewards has seen an explosion of the prosperity gospel in Sierra Leone, a fact that is not lost on our so-called religious leaders who get rich off the people’s donations to the poor in the church and community.
Today men of God are celebrities rubbing shoulders with celebrities with questionable moral fortitude. They love and court the praises of men instead of the approval of God Almighty, and this is the reason for their embarrassing behaviour when wrongs are expected to be righted.
‘Although we are not in a declared state of war, Sierra Leone is in a kind of a war between the people versus the president that wants to impose his electoral victory on all and sundry. The nation is digressing back to the days of Siaka Stevens. This is not progress; actually it is a reversal of all the gains we had made as a nation. As our leaders’ local moral guarantors we expect for our religious leaders to be as bold as to admonish President Bio and Mohamed Konneh to do the godly thing. They should have reminded President Bio how lawless and indiscipline we have become since 2018. They should have also reminded Bio of the unprocedural nature of his return to public leadership and remind him that if his elections victory was of God then we shouldn’t be in the current impasse we find ourselves in. Despite all he has done to have himself declared winner and naming a cabinet, they should have impressed it on President Bio to wait until the elections’ issues had been laid to bed before embarking on a cabinet against international objections and resistance to his win. The interreligious council should have followed the example of ECOWAS to remind the Clerk of Parliament that the Salone Parliament cannot be accepted as open when there is such a great lie being perpetrated from State House. The president has succeeded in paying for everyone’s eyes to look the other way, including the religious leaders and those he has appointed to positions of trust. Who will the people of Sierra Leone turn to if not to the Lord God in heaven who ordains our presidents? If this was of His making then we should have long gone past this. But since this electoral victory is man-made, we are hoping that we can start changing the status quo on how elections are won in Sierra Leone by having the electoral commissioner release the real results per polling station, or have another go at the presidential elections. The only other way out of this, which we believe is what Bio really wants, is for the president to head a lawless and defiant society he can rule by decree,’ according to the concerned citizens.