Paramount chiefs and other traditional rulers have told government that they would coerce no one to register in respect of the on-going voter registration. The chiefs’ comments is a response to government’s request to ensure that everyone in their areas of responsibility show up for registration so that they could vote in next year’s elections.
The Chiefs were right since registration is voluntary and not compulsory. Response from the chiefs does not seem to have gone down well with the governing Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) since the chiefs are SLPP’s last hope for a second term in the next year’s polls.
Without them, the ruling party is in trouble as South easterners are seemingly fed up with SLPP, and need a change of government. SLPP a party formed by prominent northern paramount chiefs have always seen the chiefs as their last and only hope during elections.
They believe that chiefs still hold and command great respect among their subjects knowing little that times have changed. Paramount chiefs’ influence have little impact on the people as government’s incompetence and brutality has reached unbearable height.
The high cost of living the people in the South-East are going through makes it difficult for traditional rulers to reach them. Government officials have to go down to the people to pacify and ginger them for the up-coming elections.
A member of parliament in one of the constituencies in Kenema district, Momoh Bockarie recently appealed to the people of Kenema to register and vote next year. To him, the people can still register and do not vote next year since the voter ID card is important in many ways.
“The card can be used not only to vote but bank transactions, travelling and other important functions,” he cautioned his Kenema people. South-Easterners could be appealed to, but not appeased owing to the unprecedented hardship they have seen in the past years. The hardship has shown no sign to recede.
SLPP, a party formed by prominent northern paramount chiefs would always need their support to make it to the polls. They will not hesitate to come to the paramount chiefs when situation appears to have gone out of control in the political arena.
Although most paramount chiefs and other traditional rulers have vowed not to talk to anyone to register and vote in SLPP, other chiefs are ready to do the SLPP’s bidding. A source in Kenema has told this press that town and section chiefs have issued bans on farming until the people are registered.
He went on to state that until the people go through the registration process, they would not go to their farms. Observers and political commentators have seen the chiefs’ order as a violation of human rights, and must be reversed.
It is up to the people to register or not, and if they do not want to register, the politicians have a responsibility to cajole them to do so.
In 2018, politicians cajoled the people to vote for them, and why they cannot cajole them now? Others still believe that even if the people are cajoled, they would only be confused and not convinced despite any fabulous promise.
It is said that once beaten twice shy. The people in the South-East have been beaten once by President Bio and cronies, and they would not want to be beaten at this time. A resident in Kenema Fayia Kamara residing in Freetown here has informed this press that his people would not register owing to the disappointment they have suffered in the hands of the SLPP.
“SLPP is our own party, but they have disappointed us. This is not exactly what we expect from them. We expect good things to happen in the South-East as they happen in the North-West during President Koroma’s reign,” Fayia Kamara said.
Kamara went on to state that even if South-Easterners register, most would not vote for the SLPP, but go in for other political parties this time. APC is the best and only alternative most South-Easterners would have to go in for to make a difference this time, and that difference is sure to come soon.
Residents in Kenema recently demonstrated their loyalty for APC few years back when the youth especially commercial motorists declared for the party in the open. Their minds went back to the good old days of the APC under President Ernest Bai Koroma.
The resistance to the registration is not only seen in the Eastern district of Kenema but also in the Southern capital of Bo. A resident in Bo city who hailed from Mattru in Bonthe district, Francess Alie (not her real name) said the people of Bo city were determined to teach Bio and his government a big lesson next year.
“We have prepared special audios and videos which we will play for President Bio when he comes to Bo to campaign for another term,” she said.
The people of Bo city are not resistant to the registration, but they would resist Julius Maada Bio in the ballot. People in Moyamba district have also joined the resistance, but theirs is a bit different. A great number of Northerners in Moyamba who have registered are calling on their brothers and sisters in the North-West to register in massive numbers to Kick SLPP out of power in 2023 elections.
Moyamba district is key to APC as it is the only district in the South-East where APC has a parliamentary seat. The party hopes to make impressive inroads in the coming elections.
As SLPP fails in their last hope, most of the party’s politicians are now worried and jittery about what the future holds for them. They fear because they are quite sure with President Bio as flag-bearer, SLPP will not make it to the polls.
President Bio is a man who has failed woefully in the national development project. He has performed poorly in several sectors of the economy especially in infrastructure. Since SLPP took over governance in March, 2018, no major road has been fixed particularly the road to Mattru, the road to the President’s home town.
The Bo-Mattru highway captured the attention of many Sierra Leoneans owing to its poor and dilapidated state for years. Hopes were high that the road would be fixed with Bio as President, but the collapse of a major bridge in Bumpeh-Ngao, the chiefdom headquarters exposed weak links in Bio’s government.
The collapsed bridge has disrupted vehicular and pedestrian traffic thus creating new hardship in the chiefdom. With such failure, it would be difficult for people to move to SLPP’s new direction even if the chiefs wanted to move them.