In an audio message recorded on Tuesday, 19th September 2017, outspoken critic of Sierra Leone’s elites belonging to the then main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) Alpha Saidu Bangura made allegations and predictions about Julius Maada Bio that have proven to be prophetic. At the end of the day the SLPP, according to Bangura, sacrificed the people and country for Maada Bio to get rich.
To say that the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) didn’t know about how the presidency under Julius Maada Bio was going to play out would be an understatement. They knew about Maada Bio, his past, and his intentions for wanting to be SLPP flagbearer “at any cost”.
However, despite this advance knowledge, the party was desperate enough to form the next government of Sierra Leone that they literally sacrificed our nation’s wealth so that Maada Bio and the SLPP can recoup from their 22 and 11 respective years in the political wilderness as former junta leader and the main opposition. The SLPP knew that if Maada Bio takes over as president our nation would be in for a shocker, which shock continues to eat away at the remaining fabric of our society.
Repeated over ‘WiYard’, the popular social media channel dedicated to our political or governance narrative, Alpha Saidu Bangura, who was then known as a champion critic of our political leadership, wanted for Maada Bio’s “blind supporters on social media” to tell him why he should like the then SLPP flagbearer.
In a series of rhetorical questions directed at Maada Bio’s “blind supporters” in the party, Bangura started showing how the then SLPP flagbearer should be considered as desperate enough to be elected solely to sort out his own personal interests that have to do with self-enrichment, for him and his family.
“Why should I like Maada Bio when he bought a home in the US for $600,000 with Salone money while he left the people in Sierra Leone suffering? Why should I like Maada Bio when the $600,000 home he bought with Salone money he sold while his kids were in the house and didn’t know Bio had sold the house?”
This is a part of “the lost tapes” of how Maada Bio spent the millions of dollars he reportedly left Sierra Leone with after he departed our shores for exile in the United States. Here we see the respected political analyst starting off by showing that when it comes to Maada Bio’s interests all else plays second fiddle and so forth. For a man to be so desperate as to sell a home while his children were still living there unbeknownst to them is truly not the heart or character of anyone that wants to lead a society. If a man cannot handle the affairs of his own house how can he handle the affairs of the state? But this question didn’t bother SLPP executives and Bio’s “blind supporters” as they neglected the warning or tell-tale signs about Bio’s intentions for coming back to seek the office of the presidency he had once willingly given up.
“Why should I like Maada Bio when he has hurt nine of my Sierra Leonean sisters, some of whom he had kids with that he neglected, punishing them by causing them to suffer?”
It is not a common thing to know about the personal life of a president, so much so that you know of his infidelity. A God chosen leader is faithful to his wife and family. As the nation’s fountain of honour, how honourable is it that a man wanting to be president is a known womaniser? The former military leader must be aware of the military code of honour that has to do with being faithful to his wife. The military is very strict about its officers being men of honour in every area of their lives so as to set good examples for people hoping to follow in their footsteps of career paths. Surely as a military brass the former military leader considered it as nothing to allegedly have kids with several women. Obviously a president that cannot be faithful to his wife should not be trusted to lead a country. If he cannot be faithful to one partner, he will not be able to be faithful to the people and country.
“Why should I like Maada Bio when he bargained with his brother Steve Bio to buy a 25 year old gunboat that cost $750,000 that they ended up charging Sierra Leone $3 million for that boat?”
During the warring years that was literally kicked off by Valentine Strasser, Maada Bio and others after they overthrew President Joseph Saidu Momoh, the nation’s coffers suffered severe assault by those in power. Obviously the problem started at the top. This character to benefit at all cost even at the detriment of others has marked Maada Bio’s rise and fall in the pantheon of our national leadership. Every financial move, whether in the purchase of a home, government equipment or military hardware, even government plans and actions, the former military leader’s focus is always profit, what would best benefit him and his family.
“Why should I like Maada Bio who brought tribalism and violence for them to destroy the SLPP that I have suffered for?”
It was the late President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah who before his passing had warned SLPP executives not to allow Maada Bio to assume leadership of the party, calling him a tribalist. The President showed his tribal leaning when he upon assuming the reins of leadership in 2018 he practically replaced well trained and educated Sierra Leoneans with handpicked partisans, which positions are mainly titular and aimed at thanking the job holder for his or her support to Maada Bio accomplishing his task of milking the nation’s wealth dry. The arrival of Maada Bio to the SLPP saw the rise in the profile of the gangsters in the party, who all see Bio as the former military strongman he was still parading the country as. The people got a taste of the violence inherent in the SLPP leadership and party when citizens wanting to protest against government’s plans and actions were shot dead on sight. Violence within the SLPP is rife, especially during the party’s lower level elections to fill party offices. Alpha Saidu and the SLPP executives and grassroots all knew about how violent, tribal, and self-seeking the Julius Maada Bio regime was going to be but still ignored this and allowed him free rein on our national coffers, which has suffered serious damages future regimes would have to sort out.
“Why should I like Maada Bio when he left those who are better people, people who bring SLPP together, people like Dr. Manneh, and then go and bring Prince Harding, who is a thief? He stole so much that the late President Alhaji Tejan Kabbah sacked him.”
When we consider the output and even the hiring patterns of the Maada Bio led government of Sierra Leone, it always leaves us with the thought that we surely have better people than those the president is proposing for this job. Since 2018 every ministry, department and agency of government including the three branches of government have all failed to make the kind of impact we were hoping they would have made that would assuage our suffering these past years under the Maada Bios and SLPP. However, jobs were not given to people with love for country; instead they were and are still being given to people like Prince Harding that are known for handling the public purse in ways they weren’t intended. Prince Harding performed a flagbearer coup when he announced Bio as the flagbearer for 2023 without anyone in the party challenging the president. For the president to succeed in his grand plan of fleecing the state he needed people just like him, people like Harding, Prof David Francis, and others who would look the other way.
“Prince Harding brought division in the party; brought “raray boys” (thugs) along to assault SLPP members.”
The current SLPP government regime is a regime of thugs and gangsters. The party’s leadership has lost its moral scruples by allowing for thugs and gangsters to run free in the party abusing, insulting, and assaulting anyone without fear. The people of Sierra Leone would remember how Kandeh Yumkella and his mother were treated by SLPP gangsters. Today, the “raray boys” in the SLPP are a force to be reckoned with as they have all been made rich by them being allowed to sell drugs to their fellow compatriots right outside the SLPP headquarters. Intraparty violence continues to rock the SLPP as this political godfather and that political godmother would routinely send their thugs out against each other, especially during internal elections.
“Why should I like Maada Bio when he has never done anything to benefit the SLPP? The only thing he cares about is what is bad that would personally benefit him.”
Every plan and action of the Maada Bio regime is aimed at reaping maximum benefit for the Maada Bios to get rich. Apart from admitting that he gave an advantage to Tejan Kabbah to win in 1996, Maada Bio is not on record for doing anything for the SLPP before he set sail in the 90s.
However, we can see that Maada Bio’s return has been marred by: corruption, state sponsored and sanctioned violence, tribalism, and nepotism. Each year since 2018, the Auditor General has tallied how people in this regime spent the public purse for which no one has been made to face time in prison or lose acquired properties and other assets.
As if that was not enough, desperate for more money, the president is allegedly in league with convicted and wanted Dutch cocaine smuggler Jos Leijdekkers, made more certain with the arrest and deportation of our ambassador to Guinea for cocaine and foreign exchange smuggling. This is one bad thing that is personally benefiting the president and members of the “coke cartel” in government.
“Why should I care about Maada Bio when he said they should make him flagbearer at all cost so he can use that position of the SLPP flagbearer to go outside Sierra Leone to solicit for money for him and his family?”
During the 2018 campaigns Maada Bio of the opposition complained that Ernest Bai Koroma travelled too much which affected the economy towards the end of his regime. He promised to do different. However, since taking over as president Maada Bio is the lead frequent flyer among presidents as he is rarely in the country. We can see that Alpha Saidu knew that the president wanted to travel because despite being a former president he was not really welcomed anywhere, was not received as a former leader. As a matter of fact he left the US under dubious circumstance for which we have been informed that he hired a private firm on taxpayers’ money to sort out his immigration issue in the US. Bio was certainly desperate to be SLPP flagbearer simply for him to have that diplomatic passport and access to our national coffers. Despite flying here, there, and everywhere soliciting money for his government’s plans we are still failing to see real proof of how such things were accomplished.
But this clarification by Alpha Saidu Bangura made in 2017 is spot on as the only people benefiting from the president’s many overseas trips is him and his family who are busy buying real estates and other assets outside Sierra Leone. This mentality to travel to benefit him and his family is the reason why all of his campaign promises have failed, the money was never intended for such programmes as they were and still are window dressings with nothing real behind them.
“Why should I like Maada Bio when he embezzled over $1million during the 2012 elections he and Dr Kadie Sesay cannot account for?”
This tendency to remain unaccountable has come to define the Maada Bio regime because despite all the allegations levelled against the Maada Bios since 2018, neither the president nor his communications people have ever responded to clarify or justify. The president has shown himself to be a regular monarch that is above reproach and cannot be made to give an account. Today the nation’s wealth has taken several hits with no one being held accountable for how they have managed the nation’s wealth. The need for the president to remain unaccountable for all his actions is the reason he fired the Auditors General for having the audacity to query the president on his spending.
“If you guys don’t care about the SLPP, I care about it.”
The way the SLPP has allowed for Maada Bio to lap the executives and grassroots says a lot about their love and concern for the image and reputation of the SLPP. Love for party is only second to love for the people and country. Any true patriot or partisan would stand up for a leader that speaks and performs while on the other hand speak out against such leaders for doing otherwise. The need for a party to be in power or financially strong should not be made to take precedence over the interest of the people and state the party was established for.
Although Alpha Saidu Bangura ended up working for Maada Bio after he won the 2018 and 2023 elections, his predictions and allegations about Julius Maada Bio are prophetic as the nation is suffering under the financial pressure that has engulfed the nation due to poor handling of the nation’s purse strings and half-baked cosmetic development projects whose beneficiaries are almost always “SLPP party pekin dem.”