Ranking members of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) government have confided in this press that the party is embarrassed that President Julius Maada Bio has failed to continue the legacy of his two predecessors in post war Sierra Leone, ex Presidents Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and Ernest Bai Koroma. They decry Bio for taking the party backward, which he accomplished by ignoring the high standard left by his aforementioned predecessors and instead continuing the legacy Sir Milton Margai bequeathed the Government of Sierra Leone that is still affecting us today.
They say unlike other leaders before him, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah came back to power on a mandate: maintain the peace and bring about a government of national cohesion and development. Although the late president inherited a penniless government with empty state coffers he nonetheless developed the country and left it in a good state for Ernest Bai Koroma’s regime.
True to his mandate, President Kabbah negotiated peace with the rebels, going as far as bringing them to Freetown as a sign of goodwill, even making rebel leader Foday Sankoh a de facto second vice president in his administration. After inheriting a shattered and battered economy from former coup and junta leader Julius Maada Bio, President Kabbah should have been the one most qualified to call for Commissions of Inquiry (COI’s) into the dealings of the NPRC government under Bio.
True to form and in line with the existentialities of the time, Pa Kabbah refused to call for the COI, which he deemed a waste of time, something that will throw the country backward, even take the country back to the brink of civil war. Pa Kabbah saw that the people were tired of war and conflict and were desperate to enjoy the fruits of a society at peace with itself. The people, said the late president, had been waiting for change and peace for a long time hence instituting COI’s against Bio’s junta regime would resurrect long put to rest problems, fracas or issues.
The staunch SLPP supporters say unlike President Bio, Pa Kabbah worked in the interest of the state and people of Sierra Leone. He was relentless in his strides to unify the tribes and usher a government of national unity, peace and cohesion – which is the SLPP people know. They say Kabbah knew that the SLPP is the Sierra Leone People’s Party and belongs to the people, which was the reason his government produced sound leaders from across the political divide he hired to form his rainbow government of all tribes, parties and regions in Sierra Leone. It was Pa Kabbah’s tenure that saw the rise of the former head of NaCSA, Kanja Sesay, Minister of Lands, Alfred Bobson Sesay, Minister of Mineral Resources, Okere Adams, Alpha Wurie, Alpha Timbo, and so many more.
President Kabbah broke from the tribal based government of Sir Milton Margai’s onto a new narrative, which was also copied by the Ernest Bai Koroma regime. An SLPP government does not necessarily requires an SLPP cabinet as he hired people from all parties, tribes and regions thereby using the nation’s full population complement in the business of the state and accomplishing his mandate of a peacefully co-existing government of national unity and cohesion. The SLPPartisans say Pa Kabbah was transferred to blessed memory a fulfilled man, having accomplished his tasks before the inevitable happened.
However, unlike Pa Kabbah, they bemoan the advent of President Julius Maada Bio for reversing the gains the nation had made after the disastrous years that resulted from the junta regimes he was a part of that overthrew sitting governments that led to our decade and a half long civil war and all the devastation and deaths and destruction that took place.
They say Bio came to power screaming at the top of his lungs that he will change the government from one steeped in corruption and financial leakages to one that will churn out profits amid growth on all fronts. He promised to take the fight to these national development killers. Sadly, the first thing he did that broke away from what Pa Kabbah and Ernest Bai Koroma had painstakingly built was listening to his former Chief Minister, now Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, after whose Government Transition Team Report it was recommended that Commissions of Inquiry be set up for handpicked persons of interest. David Francis proved that talk is cheap as he himself should have been queried on how he spent the state’s money while he was Chief Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
By breaking away from the legacy of peace and reconciliation of his predecessors, we can see that Bio is not here for peace, unlike Kabbah and Koroma, but for retribution; against whom, we don’t know except that his actions always affect the people and economy in a very negative and dangerous manner that would force the people onto the streets to face trigger happy police officers armed to the teeth and probably high on Kush and other illicit drugs.
The SLPP strongmen reminded that as a sign of continuity of an idea that is of national interest, Pa Koroma, after Pa Kabbah handed over power to him, allowed ministers and heads of departments and agencies from Pa Kabbah’s regime to keep their jobs for three months before his tenure kicked off.
These men were architects of peace, unlike the warlike former soldier. They knew where Sierra Leone had come from and wanted to change that direction, unlike Bio who after five years has shown that he came to continue the fight he left after handing over to Pa Kabbah. By personally handpicking persons of interest and who should be prosecuted, it appears that Bio came back to continue what he started after overthrowing Strasser, as he had personal beefs to settle this time around.
As a new leader it is expected that you follow the good examples of your predecessors, giving credence to the adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it!” Bio was expected to follow the paths of the two other post war presidents, even understudying them, as they had the connections and contacts he needs in his administration of the state. And this is something EBK would have handed over to Bio had he showed himself as being here for none other than the people’s business and for peace and reconciliation. By handpicking who to prosecute shows that Bio has personal issues with certain people to settle. But if you can prosecute ministers, what about the Permanent Secretaries who are the ministries’ vote controllers?
President Julius Maada Bio’s first set of governance deficit or mistakes involve him not following Kabbah’s and Koroma’s footsteps of peace and reconciliation. He instead went digging in the past, which should have been left to remain lying down (as in, “let sleeping dogs lie”). President Bio also allowed corruption to take centre stage, allowed sacred cows in his regime to devise ways of being corrupt; loophole corruption such as seeking per diem for travelling on government business. President Bio is also on record for tribalising the civil service by allowing tribe, party and region to inform his governance decisions, plans and actions, which was the SLPP of the Margais the society had long broken away from.
If Bio had worked in line with or with the same focus as his two predecessors, the country would have been different, far from where it is now relative to corruption, financial leakages, high exchange rate with the US dollar, hardship and suffering across the board, state sponsored violence, cancellation of SL Mining licence and losing the court case, all the police killings, among others.
The SLPP supporters say the SL Mining case reversed the gains the country had made by losing money the country should have had as revenue for a whole year due to the outcome of the SL Mining lawsuit and the cancellation of their licence. With SL Mining, the president has shown that he is a liability to the revenue generation plans of the government of Sierra Leone he heads. As a mining country, Sierra Leone needs mining companies and investors lining up to enter the country.
President Bio among others is also on record for dropping the educational standard of government employees as it is reported that many of his civil servants working under his government have highly questionable qualifications from equally highly questionable degree issuing institutions. The nation’s attention is drawn to the Dominion University of Waterloo issuing PhD’s under a mango tree graduation ceremony. There are many in this government of national disunity in the right positions but lacking the requisite educational attainment, which fact negatively impacts on the quality of product and service delivery. By having unqualified people in positions of trust the government of President Julius Maada Bio has short-changed the people of Sierra Leone because those hired to do the people’s work are a liability to the economy.
Finally, Bio has the unenviable distinction of doing things against set procedures, even against the rule of law including the constitutionality of his plans and actions. SLPP supporters and other stakeholders in our governance say no other president has bastardised the National Constitution than the man who swore to protect and uphold the nation’s highest and supreme law.
Bio, they say, instead of taking the party and government to higher heights has left the SLPP in a worse state of disrepair, something they say would take a long time and huge sums of state money to reverse. Lonta!