As the words of Chief Abdul Kadiru Kaikai of the SLPP continue to sink into the shocked yet worried people of Sierra Leone, many of who experienced the 11 year senseless and brutal civil war, some of them visited nightwatch to voice their concerns, calling on the president and his ruling government party to ensure that Kadiru Kaikai faces justice, if only to show that the president and the SLPP government are not part of Kadiru’s grand plans to bring a war that is more devastating than the brutal 1992 to 2003 civil war if he and his SLPP fail to win the 2028 presidential election.
“The president and his party government, even the international community, must ensure us that Kadiru Kaikai will face prosecution, preferably at the Special Court or the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Imagine that Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, is doing 50 years in jail for the words he uttered concerning Sierra Leone that Sierra Leone will experience the bitterness of war. Taylor didn’t come to Sierra Leone but went to jail just for what he said. Now here is a Sierra Leonean and member of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party government and a blue-eyed boy of president Bio saying that it will only cost $3.3 million to bring war to Sierra Leone. We are demanding that the president, his party government and the international community make drastic moves to see Kadiru faces justice so as to set an example to all those who are planning to unleash any kind of mayhem and bloodshed in Sierra Leone,” said a member of the group of people who lost loved ones and properties during the 11 year senseless and brutal war in Sierra Leone.
At present Kadiru Kaikai’s boss, the president of the Republic is struggling trying to ensure the people and country make ends meet as he is out and about courting foreign businesses and other investors to set up shop in Sierra Leone. All across the country there is unbearable hardship and suffering as many citizens don’t have access to food, clothing and shelter and lack good roads across the country. But instead of using the $3.3 million that his well prepared and well-funded group of warriors are hoping to use to destabilise Sierra Leone, our sources said Kadiru and his party supporters should have been thinking of using that sum to help fund the government’s many plans and actions, and not be planning to waste such a huge sum of money on unleashing war in the country simply because, as the expected flagbearer after president Bio, he and his SLPP end up losing the 2028 presidential vote.
According to our sources, they informed this medium and by default the entire Sierra Leonean community at home and the world over, but more especially so the members of the international community, that there is an alleged training facility somewhere in the south of the country where members of a certain group are receiving military and other such training aimed at bringing a period of infamy across the length and breadth of Sierra Leone.
“You have to understand that the 11 year civil war in Sierra Leone was started in the south of the country. And you must understand that since we started having elections in this country the SLPP has not been able to win elections unless ones shrouded in accusations of electoral fraud, in 1996, 2018 and 2023. So when someone from the southeast like Kadiru Kaikai comes out and say that the SLPP is not going into the 2028 elections to lose and that if he loses he will bring war to the country more diabolical than the one that waged for 11 years, then it is a planned affair,” alleged one of our sources.
During the senseless civil war of the 90s, over 50,000 of our citizenry lost their lives with hundreds of thousands more who were injured and maimed with their properties destroyed or set ablaze. Many of their loved ones paid a courtesy call on nightwatch to ensure that their fears and worries are addressed and especially for Kadiru Kaikai, like Charles Taylor, to face The Hague, if not made to face our justice system in the meantime.
“Since we saw and heard Kadiru’s video on WhatsApp, we remembered our lost loved ones and those who lost their limbs to cutlasses from warring faction rebels. We know what happened during the war. Some of our parents’ hands were cut off; many of our wives and sisters were raped; many of them who were pregnant had their stomachs ripped open by rebels who placed bets claiming to know the sex of the babies those pregnant women were carrying. Imagine such reckless and inhumane way to treat another fellow citizen just because of tribal and political differences. Therefore if president Bio and his party are not part of Chief Kadiru’s planned and well-funded war effort then they must further distance themselves from him and assure us by calling for his swift prosecution to set an example and send a clear message to the rest of the country and the world that Sierra Leone is never returning to war,” stated a lady who said she lost all her loved ones during the civil war.
The worried and concerned citizens said this is not time for war in Sierra Leone. After five years in power they said the SLPP led government under president Julius Maada Bio has failed to fulfil all their campaign manifesto promises that has resulted to five years of continuous hardship and suffering of the sort they have never experienced under any regime that has ever occupied State House.
“There is nothing this regime has done for us to want to write home about. All we can remember this regime for is killing, killing and more killing. They have killed people trying to make a living and wanting to complain about our five years of economic and social injustice in Tombo, Lunsar, Koidu, Makeni, Pademba Road Prison, Mile 98, Tonko Limba, August 10, 2022 and September 11, 2023. We are tired of bloodshed and people threatening to unleash war on us for not having their way. Things continue to be the same although Bio has been in power for six years. We are all fighting for survival every day no matter who you voted for last year. What we don’t need is for anyone or party to disrupt our day by day hustle to make ends meet. This our reaction to the threats by Kadiru Kaikai of the SLPP executive is not about the SLPP; it is not a partisan issue but a national one as people from all sides of the political, tribal and regional divide are unequivocal that they don’t want another war in this country as wars mostly affect the poor and downtrodden. Therefore if Kadiru is promising war then it should also worry the president if he is not part of Kadiru’s plans,” hinted one of our sources.
The women concluded that if president Bio, the SLPP and the international community are serious about ensuring that no one will ever cause another senseless and bloody war in Sierra Leone, “then they must all ensure that Chief Kadiru Kaikai faces swift and speedy justice”.
Reminding this medium of Chief Abdul Kadiru Kaikail’s statements that worried them, the aggrieved Sierra Leoneans repeated from the now viral video: “Because we dey go into the 2028 election, APC den get for bloody. Na bloodshed because den know say if den loss da election, den party don don. So d only tin wey go make we win da election na person wey geh mind….”
After claiming that the APC don’t like him and allegedly planned on attacking him in Falaba, Kamakwie, Kamalo and Makeni but that he miraculously escaped, Kadiru went on to say, “I say this en me ah dey say am. Ah don tok am na US Embassy. Me if ah nor be president in 2028 ah dey bring serious war na dis contry. No, I am being very serious; ah nor dey hide am…If ah nor get am ah dey bring war na dis contry we go worse pass d wan wey anybody bin don experience. I say it anywhere. Because ah well prepare for am; we well budget for am. For bring war ya na about $3.3 million; you start about Masiaka tey u dey kan up…No am being very serious.”
“So waytin make we dey sen message to people; leh people know how serious we are. We nor dey go into 2028 election for leh we go loss am oo! En una put una yase den na the ground there are people also na SLPP. Una go dey ask senior military, the only person wey d army na dis contry geh respect for insie SLPP na me. Because of the mind. We get we yone soja man dem den sef need protection, nor to so? Den need protection. So dis tin nor to town hall business nor to textbook. D politics now wey we dey play na una gbain d people den na una get am. Na mind. If u nor geh mind go sidon make u watch we. D wan den way get mind meh den kam join we. People den geh for die in the process. D wan den wey God mark.”
To be continued…