All over social media across Sierra Leone there is widespread talk and hype of an impending day of reckoning as certain sections of the society are impatient with what they have described as the slow pace of the Tripartite Committee established to look into the 24th June 2023 presidential elections results and our electoral processes.
The political and economic stalemate that has resulted from the announcement of Julius Maada Bio the incumbent president as winner of those elections has been blamed for widespread insecurity and lack of peace across the country.
It has been said that war is not necessarily resorting to the use of arms and ammunition, but a lack of peace.
This medium and people across the country are aware of the circulation of messages from people calling for nationwide protest on Wednesday, 19th June 2024, a few days before the one year anniversary of the 24th June 2023 elections.
The people of Sierra Leone are here advised to exercise caution, patience and give peace a chance by allowing the Tripartite Committee to finish its work and make its recommendations on resolving this and future electoral stalemates.
It is advisable that we should not be so quick to forget the state of affairs in this country from 1992 to 2003. The 11 year senseless war caused massive amount of deaths, destroyed homes and businesses, a shutdown of business dealings and other economic activities across the country, with a collapsed economy to boot.
After the war, the late President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah did his utmost best and fulfilled his mandate maintaining the fragile peace, which work was ably carried out or continued by the Ernest Bai Koroma regime down to the present Julius Maada Bio regime.
The nation, despite all the hardship and difficulties we have had to experience since 2018, has enjoyed relative peace and stability, despite a few hiccups here and there that started in 2018.
Now, fast forward to the 24th June 2023, general and presidential elections. Those elections have resulted into what has been widely called a manipulated and stolen presidential election mandate. The fallout from the announcement of Julius Maada Bio as the winner of the race for the Office of the President resulted into a state where there is now a peace deficit, with the main opposition initially boycotting the running of the government in the House of Parliament and the town and city councils across the country.
As the peace deficit widened the security situation across the situation became tense. Fortunately for Sierra Leone, the tension was reduced by the holding of a peace summit or conference at the Bintumani International Conference Centre organised by the Peace Commission that resulted into the signing of a communiqué by the government of Sierra Leone and the main opposition All People’s Congress that led the boycotting Members of Parliament and the mayors and councillors belonging to the APC returning to join their colleagues belonging to the SLPP in the House of Parliament and councils.
The communiqué called for the formation of a Tripartite Committee consisting of members drawn from the SLPP government of Sierra Leone, the APC and members of the international committee (The EU, UK, US, ECOWAS, AU). These people have been looking into the results of the discredited 24th June 2023 electoral process with a view to making recommendations on how to never return to what happened last June.
Despite initial glitches, the Tripartite Committee has been doing its work investigating the 24th June 2023 elections. However, up to present, and with the deadline for its mandate quickly approaching, the patient people of Sierra Leone that want to see this electoral impasse resolved have not heard of a single recommendation and people’s patience is running thin.
Meanwhile, things continue to be difficult under the incumbent regime with the prices of goods and services much higher than they were a year ago, including a lack of peace and security across the country. We have even experienced an attempted coup d’état for which the alleged perpetrators are going through a treason trial.
Yet still, impatience is rife across the country as things continue to get difficult for the ordinary man. Presently making the rounds across social media in Sierra Leone, some aggrieved people are calling for nationwide unrest on 19 June, five days before the year anniversary of the 24th June 2023 elections. Those calling for this day of infamy are suggesting an uprising with running street battles across the country.
As a responsible Fourth Estate member, nightwatch newspaper is calling for calm and advising we wait on the outcome of the investigation of the Tripartite Committee. The whole nation, including our brothers and sisters across the diaspora, is here reminded that no amount of money can buy peace. Yes, things are difficult across the board; however, with peace we can manage to make ends meet.
With peace we can still leave our homes and eke out a living no matter how little, we can be with our friends and families and loved ones, we can even take walks. We can do all this and much more because there is peace. No amount of money can buy this peace.
The people organising and calling for the 19th June 2024 protest actions are also reminded that the majority of our people live on a day by day, day to day existence. The people only survive without risking their lives when we come out and do business. This happens because of the relative peace we are still enjoying.
Without peace, no one will come out and be able to survive. Even if you have 10 bags of rice and 50 gallons of oil at home, without peace such goods will eventually run out as you won’t have anywhere in the country safe for you to purchase them.
The people of Sierra Leone should wait for the Tripartite Committee to conclude its work and make the recommendations, which we should and must work with in the interest of peace and security.
According to a highly placed source, after the recommendations there will be a timeframe for their implementation. Therefore nightwatch is calling on our people to be patient and not risk dragging the nation back to the warring 1990s.
The decision makers are reminded that if allowed to linger or go unresolved electoral impasses can form the basis for civil unrest. It is their duty if they love this nation to do what the Committee recommends in the interest of maintaining and enhancing the peace and security of this nation. Sierra Leone cannot allow herself to be dragged back to our days of infamy for which the nation has nothing to show except the gory and tasteless details of widespread death and destruction.
We have already come far since those days; let us not digress back to those dreaded years. Lonta!