Finally, the cat is out of the bag. This would have been called farfetched if it weren’t for recent events in Guinea, Mali and Guinea Bissau. From careful observation, PAOPA is making moves to create a one party state that will usher into Sierra Leone the “President for Life” phenomenon that has failed in many failed states, of which Sierra Leone is not an exception. And while some true SLPP supporters would say it sounds farfetched, the indicators are however there for the observant.
First of all, PAOPA and SLPP operate on two different platforms. While SLPP is a political party, PAOPA is a transient ideology that is here on its own agenda using the SLPP as a staging point. When the SLPP was hopeless of ever winning after Tejan Kabbah’s regime owing to how well President Koroma had run the country, PAOPA strategists, since their time in the opposition, were very busy conjuring scenarios for instituting a one party state that would see them in power much longer than the late President Siaka Stevens. The men of war are sleepers in the corridors of power, awaiting their reactivation into active duty.
Observers of our political process would recall that the ‘TORMENTOR’ that failed to have his way in 2012 morphed into the forceful ‘PAOPA’ that promised in Bo after winning the 2018 elections to never hand power back to the APC. The SLPP carries the lion’s share of the blame for this menace we are experiencing in state governance as Dr Prince Harding and company were certain Bio was the only one that was capable among them to stand for president hence he was elected as flag bearer unopposed in 2018, which Bio has etched in stone with a new party constitution styled to his liking.
So, how do you trick the people into giving you a mandate after Ernest had run the country so well? You promise over and over again to do away with the bane of their existence as a state and people: corruption, financial leakages, violence, lawlessness and indiscipline.
Tired of how the aforementioned have rendered them poor in a land blessed with riches, the ever hopeful and trusting people of Sierra Leone, who despite so many failed promises still believed in and were by then still searching for responsible leadership, bought into PAOPA’s promises of a New Direction for Sierra Leone, and gave the SLPP the mandate.
But four years down the line, after this government have lost the wars on corruption, financial leakages, violence, lawlessness and indiscipline by taking them to levels of illogicality only witnessed during the pre-civil war years, the true plans of PAOPA have been made very clear – the party is creating the scenario that would make necessary the perceived need to depoliticise our governance space for the ushering in of a one party state, with Bio taking the role of the late dictator Siaka Stevens.
But fate is on the side of the people of Sierra Leone because almost every move PAOPA thought would be an easy sell to the people of Sierra Leone have ended up backfiring. Among such critical national-disaster-prone moves are the Local Council and Cybercrime Bills and the Midterm Census.
By seeking to do away with local council elections, the New Direction government is attempting to steal local council governments it woefully failed to win from the people and putting them under the direct control of State House through the ministry of local government. Their target are the bigger city councils across the country, but more so the Freetown City Council.
When their move to take over the FCC by imposing the deputy chief administrator and environment and sanitation boss without considering their needfulness in council backfired, a sleeper or dormant informant was activated to illegally record the mayor during a heated moment, when all her guards were down, which comment was then misconstrued in an attempt to stoke tribalism. (Remember, the late Joe Demby was hated by the SLPP for saying the president is a stoker of tribalism.)
But the public could not be misled as the mayor’s issue died down much faster than it was concocted. That was the final straw for PAOPA though, who then decided to stop playing around and go for the “Full Monty” by coming up with the Local Council Bill aimed at depoliticising local council elections. Why? To bring councils under the absolute control of the presidency, hence give the president a much wider power base. We all know that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
But PAOPA in their wildest imaginations was wholly unprepared for the kind of backlash their moves have elicited from the media and opposition parliamentarians. Referring to such moves as the foundation for a one party state, the deputy leader of the opposition in parliament, Mr I.B. Kargbo warned against such a day, going as far as positing that should it happen, the next move would be to depoliticise and bring parliament, which is supposed to be a separate but equal arm of government, under the control of the presidency. Seeing that as the groundwork for a one party state, the deputy opposition leader gave us a heads up on PAOPA’s reprehensible plans.
In a carrot and stick move aimed at satiating the very active but underpaid media, PAOPA gave them a carrot by amending Part V of the dreaded Public Order Act that had been a crown of thorns on the head journalists and other national commentators by which they had been arrested, jailed, exiled and cowed for over 50 years, only to turn around with two sticks: sending them to the Independent Media Commission (IMC), that is not so independent as its leaders are handpicked by the president, and by tightening the screws on freedom of speech, expression and association with a much more draconian instrument, the Cybercrime Law.
Locally referred to as the ‘Adebayor Law’ in reference to this government’s most outspoken online critic, the instrument will in essence be used against anyone that the government deems as outspoken, with the police and minister being made judge and jury. We know that the police always work for and on behalf of the government of the day, and not in the interest of the people whose taxpayer’s money pays their salaries. As a matter of fact, and going by very recent happenings, the police are more likely to shoot and kill or maim you in the street for any slight breach of their instructions, than protect you.
Lastly, the government despite widespread opposition, which resulted to that embarrassing display of hormones at Bintumani Hotel and the exercise’s funder the World Bank pulling out in the eleventh hour, has executed the Midterm Census Statistics Sierra Leone is incapable of executing, all in an effort to create new districts and constituencies in the party’s home-base or stronghold of South-eastern Sierra Leone. Why?
In case PAOPA fails to get its way through its many un-procedural and seemingly illegal instruments, it would attempt to ‘win’ or ‘carry’ more districts and constituencies in the 2023 election, outside of Freetown. As if to rub it all in our faces, PAOPA tabled the Midterm Census and Cybercrime Bill together, something that shouldn’t be done. But, hey, that’s the PAOPA way.
‘If all the above fail, PAOPA still have the heads of the police, military and NEC (National Electoral Commission) right where they want and need them: under the president’s arms. The heads of these institutions are firmly under the president’s grip. I won’t be surprised when they lose the next presidential elections if these groups won’t be called upon to ensure that PAOPA have their way. Remember, this guy had promised not to hand over power. A final effort would be that they will capture or seize the state in broad daylight, in a move similar to Bio’s palace coup against Strasser or Russia’s in Ukraine.’
So now that the cat is out of the bag that PAOPA through all these actions have been trying to consolidate power to the point of not only rigging the 2023 elections, but to have its leader as president for life, what is expected of the people of Sierra Leone, who are the power behind the presidency?
The people, including MPs from all the different parties, should vote in the interest of the people, not the party. By depoliticising local elections, shutting us down and arresting us for our online and social media comments, and creating new constituencies and districts, PAOPA, in a move that is an affront to the basic tenets of democracy, is trying to tell us that they have the power to do as they please.
But, “na by so now?!” Really?! Are we the people who put our brothers and sisters in power to run our affairs not able to remove them? If we allow PAOPA to have their way, their next move will be a referendum on extending the president’s terms to go beyond two terms, citing more time to accomplish their manifesto promises, for which they would refer to Paul Kagame and further afield China’s Xi Jinping.
But surely only a mad man would compare any of our leaders past and present, except Ernest Bai Koroma, to the Rwanda and China leaders. If New Direction plans to accomplish it the way they have for the past four years, then PAOPA will enrich itself at our expense, as they already have as per the 2018, 2019 and 2020 Auditor General’s Reports.
What a NEW DIRECTION indeed!