The adage which says when the going gets tough only the tough gets going has crystalised in the PAOPA regime whose officials have started running away.
The PAOPA regime faces funding cut, legitimacy crisis and adjudication for human rights abuses especially the right to life in the past five years.
The Election Investigation Committee is rounding up its work, and it is clear that those who conspired to undermine democracy particularly, the June 24, 2023 elections will be held accountable as demanded by the people of Sierra Leone and members of the international community.
As if smelling the rat, the Energy Minister, Alhaji Kanja Sesay, Speaker of Parliament, Dr Abass Chernor Bundu and Press Secretary, Solomon Jamiru have recently laid kits without proper and sufficient reason. Other government officials have also taken French leave from their offices seeking havens in the United States, United Kingdom and other European countries.
Who will be the next minister, parliamentarian or head of government agency to run away is one of the most popular questions among Sierra Leoneans.
The Energy Minister who resigned amid a severe energy crisis in the country is the latest to run away from the PAOPA camp after years of miserable failure.
Mr Kanja Sesay left the office after the President reportedly issued a deadline of one week to fix the energy problem or removed from office.
Mr Kanja Sesay who has been in the good books of President Julius Maada Bio since April, 2018 has been a long-standing SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) politician. Kanja first earned his fame after he served as Commissioner for National Commission for Social Action during the 11-year rule of President Ahmed Tejan Kabba.
The fall out between the Energy Minister and President Julius Maada Bio, according to an opposition politician, has not come by surprise.
Information filtering through the public shows that Mr Kanja Sesay will have to answer critical questions at the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone (RSCSL) over the death of about 20 people following an alleged arbitrary removal of 1.5kva thermal plant from Makeni city in Northern Sierra Leone.
According to sources, the order to relocate the electricity generator came from the Energy ministry making the minister a person of interest at RSCSL when it sits in the not-too-distant future.
A Sierra Leonean who seems emotionally attached to the killings in Makeni city says the ghosts of the departed souls would hunt the former minister, and will surely face the Karma law if he escapes justice.
“Those ghosts of our brothers are going to hunt you and you will never have peace in your life,” Amira Tatayea Bangura posts on social media.
Looking back at recent past, Bangura said the Youth in Makeni city, at that time, were gunned down during a protest for a standby generator given to them by former President Ernest Bai Koroma. It is yet unclear whether Kanja Sesay will stay in Sierra Leone or goes out of the country either to save his face or keep his head above waters.
However, much is not known about circumstances that led to the resignation of the Press Secretary, Solomon Jamiru, but many said he took such action on moral grounds although it was a bit quite late.
Like several liberal South-Easterners, Mr Jamiru is widely seen as a forthright man and does not back PAOPA in their massive killing sprees and attempted ethnic cleansing.
A widely circulated audio on social media calling on government to work with opposition politicians for peace and national cohesion and same time respect the rights and freedoms of the people was said to have come from him.
Almost invariably, ex-Speaker of Parliament, according to political commentators must run away by way of resignations as the political tide is no more in favour of the ruling party.
Dr Abass Bundu a real Northerner was vile enough to be used, misused and dumped by the PAOPA, a group of young boys who he can lecture. He was among eminent Sierra Leoneans in the late 1980s that made a mark at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He was also one time ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States) Secretary-General flying Sierra Leone’s flag very high. But, quite lately, Dr Abass Bundu’s life is a mosaic of intrigue and controversies when he joined ranks with the PAOPA guys.
By his actions as head of Sierra Leone’s legislative body, Dr Bundu failed to maintain the independence and integrity of parliament through the passage of obnoxious laws and taking sides with the ruling party at all times.
It was during the Speakership of Dr Bundu that several draconian laws were enacted especially those that had to do with election rigging. He presided over the enactment of the Political Parties Regulation Commission, Local Government, Public Elections and Proportional Representation Regulations which changed the format or mode of the elections.
The laws which were enacted in 2022 less than a year to June 24, 2023 multi-tier elections were tilted in favour of the incumbent, Julius Maada Bio.
The Public Elections Act, 2022 does not tolerate political parties to coalesce in an event there is a run off. The Proportional Representation law, in particular, transformed the elections from constituency to vote by quota and that a political party will have a seat in parliament only if it scored 11.9% of the total votes cast in a particular district.
The law booted out younger or smaller political parties from the election race thus creating a situation of political apathy.
The enactment of electoral laws was a move that went against a major ECOWAS policy on elections which prohibit tampering of such laws at a time close to the polls.
However, Dr Bundu was complacent about the prevailing situation even when he was quite aware about the devastating consequences that lay ahead. The former Speaker also played similar role during the passage into law of the controversial Mid-Term Census in 2021. It was also in his tenure that the state of emergency on ‘Kush’ was tabled before parliament, and the document is now a law although Dr Bundu is now out of the walls of parliament.
The puppet role to which the Speaker of Parliament was relegated owed it to the manner of his appointment. Dr Bundu, according to several parliamentarians, was imposed on parliamentarians and not popularly elected. During the elections for the Speaker, 16 APC parliamentarians were barred from entering parliament by way of court petitions. As a new form of erosion of justice, Supreme Court ignored petitions filed by the opposition party, a situation that made the remaining APC members to voice out their concerns in a rather uneasy manner. The consequences were however severe.
APC Parliamentarians who attempted to assert their rights were manhandled by armed guards leaving many to seek treatment in various health facilities across the country.
An outspoken APC member of parliament, Honourable Mohamed Bangura was tortured so much that he spent days in an hospital responding to medical treatment. The brutalisation of law makers never ceased throughout PAOPA’s five-year reign.
The manner in which Dr Bundu became Speaker of parliament made him an object of scorn and laughter throughout his reign.
The worst came when 10 APC parliamentarians were replaced with SLPP runners-up giving an edge to SLPP in parliament especially during voting on controversial issues in the legislative body.
Now, Dr Bundu and other officials have gone, but their past actions will continue to hunt them as the evil that men do lives after them.