In 2025, President Julius Maada Bio has the legal right to hold a census throughout Sierra Leone to know the exact number of Sierra Leoneans apparently for proper planning but has a political undertone. By accepted practice and procedure, a national head count is held every 10 years and it is an opportunity Bio would let go as South-Easterners need at least two new districts in the same way ex-President Koroma resuscitated Karene and Falaba districts in the 2015 national census.
Without any doubt, the census led to the creation of the Northwest region with PortLoko as the regional headquarters. Under Pressure from his party comrades, Bio would want to follow Ernest Koroma’s footprints by reviving the two districts and possibly widen their region. Panguma and Bandajuma districts may be revived after the 2025 census.
For such objective to be achieved, population is needed, and SLPP government has masterminded several killings, oppression and horror in the North-West regions, a factor that has pushed many into fraudulent migration schemes with ‘Temple Run’ being the most notorious.
Several warrants of arrest have been endorsed for a huge number of North-Westerners accused of taking part in protests calling for President Bio to go. To make mountains out of a mole hill, the police have charged with treasonable offences for a mere wish for the President to go.
Arrest and threats of arrest were even made by the security forces before and during registration with many escaping to the South-East regions where they hope to get havens.
Currently, hundreds, if not thousands are still kept behind bars as only few have been released after the communique came into force. The communique is a peace document that emanated from the Commonwealth-led talks at the Bintumani Hotel in Freetown.
It made it imperative for government to release all detainees and resettle all those driven out of their communities as a result of political violence. However many more still remain in custody. Owing to the prevailing situation, any census held for now will surely be at the advantage of the ruling party as they will have more numbers for the creation of other districts.
The move for the creation of the two districts started in Bio’s first term when most of his SLPP members subjected him to pressure although it was illegal.
Coined as 2021 Mid-Term Census, Bio appealed to the international community, the European Union and the World Bank for funding despite criticisms from a great many people. Sierra Leone has never held a mid-term head count making Bio’s moves illegal to the core.
Former head of Statistics Sierra Leone, Professor Osman Sankoh was coerced into making the illegal census a reality, a move that showed the extent to which South-Easterners needed new districts and a new region.
However, the backlash and tough feedback from the public held back EU and World Bank from the process as they allocated no money to a census that lacked a consensus. EU was the first to back out of the census exercise while World Bank pulled out at the eleventh hour.
The snub by the international community did not stop Bio from holding illegal census only to pronounce concocted figures that were never accepted by the public. What a mere waste of tax-payers money? What a dishonest act to say that Kenema, one of the most remote places in the Eastern region to have more population than Freetown, the capital city.
The head count boomeranged as those who took part in the census found it difficult to get their wages, and threatened to take to the streets.
For several weeks, the police kept guard at the premises of the national statistics agency to ward off potential rioters.
Government suffered a triple jeopardy as they did not get funding from the international community, the results were discredited and the new districts failed to emerge. Despite the failure, Bio still keeps an eye on the census in 2025 as a soldier does not run away, he withdraws to launch another attack one day.
Apart from the census, Bio would also like to hold the forte in 2025 as he wanted to witness an economic windfall Sierra Leone has never seen in the past.
In the said period, the world would turn its attention to agriculture and countries that move towards agricultural productivity would receive huge financial support, a move that would strengthen Bio’s grip on power and continue to bash at the US and the West.
Little wonder that the hype on ‘Feed Salone’ initiative is heard in the mosques, churches, Ataya bases , ghettoes, academic circles, political fora and rallies even before implementation.
Bio’s government has gone berserk for the past months as he struggles to even pay salaries and wages with the country plunged into the highest debts ever seen in history. No meaningful project that can take Sierra Leoneans out of poverty has been launched under Bio’s rule, but he hopes to make hay under the ‘Feed Salone’ project as the United Nations and other inter-governmental institutions are ready to pour resources in the agricultural sector.
The move to boost agriculture had started in recent years after the pronouncement of the ‘Green Revolution’ by late UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan for Africans to feed themselves. Africa is blessed with vast arable land, abundant sunlight and rain fall and able-bodied men and women to till the land, but billions of US dollars are spent annually on rice import prompting the questions why Africa does not work for Africans.
In Sierra Leone, over US$200m goes into annual rice import, a bad move for a country that need more dollars and other foreign currencies to normalise the exchange rate and favourably compete with other countries in the international trade.
Thus, 2025, will be a great moment for Julius Maada Bio if allowed to continue with the stolen mandate, and it is clear that the more money is pumped into Bio’s pockets, the more he would tighten his hold on the forte, and will not give up easily.
He has lost the US$500m under the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact, but will not afford to miss out on the agricultural fund.
The world recently watched Bio’s desperation in attending agricultural fora with the Food Summit in Italy being one of the brightest examples.
Sources said the forum was meant for ministers and heads of agencies, but only Bio went there as President.
Bio would leave no avenue unexplored and no stone unturned to realise dream, and he cares less about riding roughshod on Samura Kamara and the people of Sierra Leone if diplomacy fails.
Bio will definitely capitalise on Samura Kamara’s cool and calm nature to have his way at the detriment of Sierra Leoneans.
Although Samura Kamara has been a technocrat all this while, he is now a top-notch politician although he usually says he is not.
Kamara also offends his supporters whenever he utters the statement that “election is not a do-or-die affair.”
But, for President Julius Maada Bio, it is a do-or-die as he threatened, in 2018, to overthrow if the election results did not favour him.
By such threats, the international community and key stakeholders were terrified and resolved to confer victory on Maada Bio although he did not win the election.
It is worse for June 2023 as nobody congratulated him not even the UK, Sierra Leone’s former colonial power. Without recognition, congratulation and inauguration, Bio’s government is illegal, and the political situation became worse when opposition law makers staged a boycott.
For three months, APC (All People’s Congress) Parliamentarians, mayors, chairmen and councillors refused to take their seats in parliament and councils until the election is reversed. It is dangerous for a government that wanted to hit the ground running as it failed the people of Sierra Leone in the first five years.
SLPP weakened the economy as it failed to control inflation and normalised the exchange rate and rectified the country’s recurrent, unfavourable terms of trade. Despite the failings, Bio eyes 2025 as he fails to make hay when the sun shines.