The withdrawal and replacement of the security detail for ex-President Ernest Koroma has raised needless furore on a national scale. The routine exercise carried out during his tenure as President became news because “I was not consulted” said the ex-president. If he is still in his right senses he would recall that he was not consulted about the security detail he found at his inauguration. What we are witnessing now is changing the goal posts for ‘World Best’ to score easily. We stick to high principles from ostensibly higher society citizens.
The great question which in all ages has disturbed mankind and brought on them mischief has been not whether there be power in the world nor where it comes from but who should have it. Thus some citizens for sentimental reasons of tribe and region are going to support a party led by ‘World Best.’ Ernest Koroma graduated at Fourah Bay College with a Third Division having failed to make it in the Faculty of Law. It should not be surprising therefore that he is fumbling on such simple issues as a change of guards.
Though APC was already existing he ignored it and pitched tent with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of the late Thamui Bangura before his opportunism took him to the Grand Alliance of the late Dr. Raymond Kamara. Manoeuver-ability was and still is his mission. After wranglings and court cases he emerged as the compromise candidate amid intellectuals.
Since his defeat at the last elections he had practically refused to resign although he conned the world into doing so within two to three months. He has virtually spilt the APC down the middle by his political chicanery. The pundits in the party will not forgive him for his unilateral sacking of his former Vice President and his choice of their presidential candidate.
Let me cudgel the memories of the forgetful that we have never had transitions on this bedeviled order until the maverick of an ex-President came on the scene. When President Tejan Kabbah retired citizens hardly knew that he existed.
Some used to ask whether he was still alive because he lived a quiet life befitting a statesman. Some of these egoisms should not be blamed on the personalities but on the 1991 Constitution. Just why one human being should be assigned 30 personnel is not easy to figure out. What are their job descriptions? Who are poised to attack them?
Thomas Jefferson once wrote that “no man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.” Ernest Koroma burst into office with zest and gusto tantalizing the people until he has nose-dived them into a near-abyss. He wants to come back to effect damage control by proxy.
He is proud of his record of presiding over the most peaceful country in West Africa regardless of the fact that his party brought war and the war was ended under the presidency of the SLPP. He inherited a peaceful nation for which he should take no credit.
Absence of occupation is not rest. A mind vacant is a mind distressed. It would appear that after his busy schedule the ex-President is finding it hard to get adjusted to a new regime of retirement. Others, like Solomon Berewa though not a former President, have used their free hours in writing their memoirs. Ernest Koroma may like to do so but has he the intellectual horse power? At his age dementia could set in so we should not b shocked at his latest behavior. It would appear that discord is falling on the music of his soul.