Speaking as a guest during an AYV TV programme the leader of Unity Party, Femi Claudius Cole said “President Bio must go!” calling on Sierra Leonean voters to kick him out of office saying the President is a threat to peace, security, the rule of law, the judiciary, national cohesion among others.
The indefatigable Femi Cole is absolutely right. President Bio’s rule has reversed many a gains this nation had made in the postwar era, lowering the nation’s standing among the community of nations. Contrary to the glowing words employed by the president and his transition team promising a new direction in government, the regime has trodden a path that it shouldn’t have, causing unnecessary shocks to the economy that threatened the peace of the state. Plans and actions of the executive and his appointed civil servants led to citizens taking to the streets in protest, for which many have died and still languishing in cells and prisons awaiting their fate.
Bio’s five years of misrule has seen decisions by the judiciary in matters involving members of the opposition brought under question while others expose the inadequacy and inefficiency of our elected lawmakers in Parliament for not challenging the legal instruments all the way to the highest court for interpretation on many of the president’s actions that put his mandate as defender of the constituted order under serious disrepute.
Who can unequivocally say across Sierra Leone that with the impending elections that they feel safe and at peace? The citizens are under constant threat of arms from day and night security patrols and checkpoints that have many asking if there is peace in the nation. The shooting of innocent civilians across the country who were out to protest government action and the lack of progress made in the identification of the executioners and givers of those orders to shoot is not lost on the people who added that justice for those killed and wounded and jailed is yet to be granted by the regime.
Since the end of the civil war in 2002 the country had been moving from a government of reprisals to one that will compete at developing the state. Presidents Kabbah and Ernest Bai Koroma didn’t commission inquiries into past regimes because they were looking forward to a day when the corruption fight was going to be waged against members of the regime in power instead of those from the past, while those in the present are getting away with grand state theft.
Because of the actions of those he appointed and hired including his and those of his wife the economy received preventable shocks that worsened the lot of the poorest of the poor. It made the rich richer and the poor poorer, while the middle class is hard pressed and shrinking. So far those benefitting from government jobs and contracts are associated with the ruling party leadership, with many of the contracts tied to the US dollar.
The gains in tribal inclusion that had been made by the Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and Ernest Bai Koroma regimes in terms of the makeup of the civil service, which job opportunities constitute the meat of employment opportunities for majority of citizens, were reversed by President Bio. But by replacing seasoned and career civil servants with people lacking the education and training, President Bio not only threatened the peace and security of the state but also dropped the standard of the calibre of employees hired by the state. Remember that their counterparts working for other governments are usually the best of the best in their fields of endeavour.
Indeed the nation of Sierra Leone is expected to save itself from the claws of the new direction regime. After the disastrous five years of misrule by President Bio and his appointees giving them another five year mandate will be like giving the SLPP a blanket cover to empty the state’s coffers before a sensible government of Sierra Leone is voted into power.
The nation cannot allow itself to be cajoled or sweet-talked into believing that this regime did what they did these past five years, due to the Covid 19 pandemic and the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. Doing so would make us part accomplices in all their actions going back to 2018.
Instead of strengthening the constitution against abuse and bringing it up to speed, the president used it to get his way, passing laws by the backdoor and bypassing and sidestepping the rules and procedures that govern his and the actions of all his subordinates. All this regime’s overtures in the nation’s House of Parliament presented the country in an embarrassing light as Parliamentarians were recorded fighting in Parliament, with police officers called into the Well to stop the fights, something that had never happened in the nation’s House of Parliament.
The people of Sierra Leone know about all the misdeeds of the incumbent regime. The question remains if they will listen to Femi Claudius Cole and all other opposition parties and our international development partners who have been calling on the people of Sierra Leone to literally get smart and see the nonperforming regime out of government.