For every national crisis or blessing the Head of State takes the greatest discredit or credit. Thus it is that in the present pandemic Sierra Leoneans and even foreigners are looking up to President Bio. Even when there was a scarcity of fuel, due to external factors, citizens were heard saying that the President is not doing anything. Thus it is that we have ineluctably arrived at a situation of this pandemic for which each state takes measures to halt it in its tracks. Such measures can never be pleasant for pleasure- loving people anywhere.
A taste of stringent measures in recent decades were occasioned by the rebel invasion of January 6 1999 when congregation worship was impractical for a number of days. It took some time but the situation normalized on Sunday the 22nd March. Christians were forbidden to worship in church as a precaution for the incidence of COVID-19 in the country.
During the Ebola scourge there was a clustering of worshippers in churches and mosques for salvation purposes albeit the disease was contracted by touching. The disease was however eliminated with hygiene and medical measures. All the while there was overcrowding at shopping centers and market places and struggles to enter vehicles entailing greasing on one another, etc. Some quarantine was done. Church services and prayers in mosques that were overcrowded went on apace.
What has now bemused almost the whole of the populace has been the suspension of public worships while other spheres of the nation’s life where there are even more congregations of people were left to go on as usual.
The conundrum in all this is why places of worship were picked out as the early culprits of the possible transmission COVID-19. After all worshippers and people entering public places everywhere were enjoined to perform the rituals of hand washing with clean water and soap as well as sanitizers. So people were wondering where the coronavirus would come from after all those procedures.
It should not be forgotten that more than 90 percent of Sierra Leoneans are either Christians or Muslims and the disenchantment of the populace can well be imagined. In taking the decision to suspend public worshiping the President was obviously not alone. He had advisers including personnel from the WHO and local technocrats.
What has been intriguing is why the decision to suspend public worship was taken without either informing or consulting religious leaders in the Inter-Religious Council. They were all available. It looked like a deliberate act to get them out of a decision to which they were likely to object.
For some time now watchers of Sierra Leone politics have been wondering at some of the policy moves of the erstwhile urbane and well-meaning Julius Maada Bio. The democrat in him would not normally allow him to take an unpopular decision like suspending public worship while all other inter-personal relations are going on. The suspension was especially grievous because the disease is yet at bay and the priests who are complementary in counseling their fellows and whom they believe more in such matters than their secular leaders are presented from assembling. The President seems to be under a spell. He is not to blame. This spell can only be broken by allowing public worship to resume without delay after the next Friday for the sake of equity of suspension.
The peace efforts of Julius Maada Bio should be recognized even before he became democratic President. His peace conference was boycotted by an opposition that thinks it owns the sole right to rule this country. President Bio is torn between pieces of advice from the Statutory Cabinet and the Kitchen Cabinet. Unfortunately he seems to have bent over backwards to bring in people who have proved to be enemies in the camp to advise him. Even in the matter of finance he has succumbed to having a parallel Procurement Unit in the Ministry of Finance countering almost every move of the statutory Procurement Unit.
Lockdown as is done in developed countries will only amount to lock up because the infrastructures are lame in developing countries. President Bio’s best bet is to have a partial lockdown not targeting religious houses only. He should rethink and repent of his sin against the people. Let him pray for God’s Direction for now and forget about the New Direction for a while. Then all will be well; all manner of things.