By Ralph Sesay
The last sentence in the last stanza of Sierra Leone’s National Pledge states that, “I put her interest above all else.” But how many Sierra Leoneans really put the country’s interest above their personal and party interest is a million dollar question.
Many Sierra Leoneans, in their capacity as public officials, have betrayed the cause of the country’s progress by either not coming to work earlier or by leaving work earlier, or by mishandling or misappropriating whatever belongs to government. They have preferred to take their selfish and personal or family interest to put square pegs in round holes in public service jobs rather than those qualified and can deliver the goods. And this creates serious consequences for service delivery and loss to the state.
The situation is also the same for the country’s two oldest political parties –the SLPP and the APC. They have held on to the country’s future since independence and there is nothing to show for it.
As Emerson stated in his song, ‘Yesterday bette pass teday’ and ‘nar by turn dem all dey tiff,’ these traditional parties are more concerned about sustaining their traditional votes in their strongholds rather than maintain the national interest of the country. In the event of doing this they would even not mind putting the peace, security and stability of the state in jeopardy.
Change of power, from the SLPP to the APC or the other way, has always been chaotic; almost leading to state fragility. None of the two parties would ever agree that they have lost power and that they should support the other for the development of the state. The consequences of them losing power have always been translated to instability and chaos.
The Sierra Leone Police have always been used by both parties to undermine our hard worn peace even when the British tax payers’ monies have been used in the recent past to reform the police and bring it up to modern standards. The leadership of the Sierra Leone Police has for once been unable to resist political interference and drive the force towards democratic accountability and transparency. Tribalism and Regionalism have taken center stage as Police promotions, transfers and postings have taken political dimensions rather than following the huge established policies and procedures set by the Change management.
Richard Moigbeh, who was at the helm of the Police Change management process, as the ‘blue eye boy’ of British born Inspector General Keith Biddle, has ignored all the policies and procedures of the SLP post war restructuring process at the expense of political orders. Strategic Managements Plans, Public Perception Surveys, Crime Statistics and the numerous policies no longer direct the conduct and operations of policing.
Poor and vulnerable Sierra Leoneans, who have no stake in the governance of the country, will always have to exercise strong resilience to live with the odds created by such transitions of power. They will have to live with the unbearable consequences of losing out economically, educationally or otherwise.
Politicians from the either side of the political divide have always done anything within their power to maintain their traditional strongholds; even when they fully know that such traditional strongholds are largely incapable of bringing them into power. They would make public pronouncements that would put the interest of those strongholds above all other areas in the country.
The distribution of the national cake, by the two political parties, always takes the traditional stronghold pattern, even though sometimes an attempt is made by them to camouflage the other areas where very little is often done just to fool the citizenry that the government is national in outlook.
The same pattern applies in the appointment of cabinet and other positions within Government. Here the traditional strongholds have always taken the lion share. Both the Bio and Ernest Koroma Governments ARE guilty of such practices notwithstanding the green guys have promised a New Direction. Sackings in parastatals and other Government Commissions and Agencies have also taken a similar toll in the last two decades or more, with the APC and SLPP at the helm of affairs.
People lose jobs in Sierra Leone not because of incompetency as in other places in the world but because of their political leaning. Thousands of Sierra Leonean professionals have bore the brunt of the continuing callousness by the APC and the SLPP governments at the detriment of their families and loved ones.
This could not stop even with a promise of a New Direction. At least people were hopeful that a New Direction would have halted all these anomalies and direct the path to a new Sierra Leone where every Sierra Leonean would benefit from the national cake irrespective of which political party you support or where you come from.
It was clear that the APC was notorious for all these divisive tendencies in the recent past, but how come that the only New Direction that Sierra Leoneans have relied on would move towards a New Direction in a rather Old Road way? Why should the SLPP and APC politicians always take their party interest above national interest?