SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party), the country’s second oldest political entity always finds it hard to achieve development goals despite their lengthy, voluminous and bogus manifestoes presented to the people of Sierra Leone.
In 2018, SLPP floated dozens of promises to the electorate with Free Quality Education being the flagship closely followed by what they called a bread-and-butter economy in the PEOPLE’s manifesto.
The government recorded little or no success even in its flagship project, one of the main factors that led to the stoppage of funding to the education sector.
The party’s failure in the first five years did not stop its politicians from making another set of promises after it allegedly illegally seized power in what looked like an electoral coup in June 27, 2023.
This time, SLPP government comes with the same old promises codified in a nicely decorated GREEN MANIFESTO.
The only difference time, government identified five priorities with agriculture as the flagship project marking a paradigm shift of priorities, but many believe that it would fail again as glittering signs have already shown.
Since the launching of the FEED SALONE initiative in October, last year, the realities on the ground show that it is a mere lip service on the part of government.
In the face of FEED SALONE, a bag of rice hovers between Le1m and Le1.5m making it difficult for the low-income earners but worst for the have-nots.
Similar failures also crystalise in the remaining four thematic areas of youth employment, energy, infrastructure and women’s empowerment.
Thousands of able-bodied and skilled youth are still jobless despite promises of job creation, energy supply is still eclectic, roads still remain in bad shape and women’s empowerment scheme seen as a gimmick since parliament is not the only platform where women should show their potentials. Other critical areas of national development need women if SLPP means business in the empowerment scheme.
Although SLPP has failed Sierra Leone on several occasions, the question of what actually leads to their failure is hardly posed to dive deep into the situation.
However, senior politicians who have been following SLPP’s governance style observe that the tendency to create a one-party state by getting rid of APC appears to be the main cause. Although such political tendency lies deep in their hearts and minds, their actions portray their intentions.
To achieve such mission meant a crackdown on the opposition as seen in massive arrest and incarceration of APC big guns including ex-President Ernest Bai Koroma who had been placed under house arrest not until he was freed by ECOMOG (ECOWAS Monitoring Group) troops a month ago.
Koroma’s arrest is the latest in a series of SLPP’s attempts to kill the APC overnight.
In early 2018 just weeks Julius Maada Bio was declared President of Sierra Leone, thugs were set in motion against former APC government officials in what was known as OPERATION RECOVER STOLEN PROPERTY led by former Mines Minister, Foday Rado Yokie.
All the thuggery was directed at ministers of Northern background sparing South-Eastern ones.
Key APC politicians who fell in the hands of the thugs lost their lives in the process while many sought refuge and asylum in the United States and other European countries as well as Africa.
Security forces and the courts were coopted into the hounding or hunting of APC politicians as seen in illegal and indiscriminate arrest and incarcerations that characterised the SLPP regime throughout its almost six years of political existence.
The once vociferous and highly critical APC Spokesman, Cornelius Deveaux is out of the country reportedly seeking refuge from police harassment. As APC politicians were chased out of the country, those who stayed behind were slammed with corruption charges after a demonic and erroneous Governance Transition Team (GTT) report was authored and released by SLPP hardliners.
The report strongly recommended the formation of judge-led commissions of inquiry to look into the entire governance system between 2007 and 2018 owing to allegations of unprecedented scale of corruption.
Ex-Chief Minister, Professor David Francis, a man who appeared more PAOPA than President Bio himself masterminded a report that relegated the Koroma regime to a “criminal racketeering enterprise” thus convicting past government officials before they faced the commissions of inquiry.
The removal of 10 APC parliamentarians, the imposition of a Speaker of Parliament and the enactment of draconian laws was geared towards the creation of a one-party state.
In a year, SLPP government, using the carrot-and-stick approach method passed four major laws (the Public Elections, Local Government, Proportional Representation and Political Parties Regulation Commission Acts) as a form of election rigging to tighten its grip on power.
By their actions, it could be argued without any fear of contradiction that SLPP government paid much attention to litigation than national development, a factor that always account for their failure in the governance project at any time they take over the reins of state command.
The move towards the one-party project has a long history dating back to April, 1961 when Sierra Leone’s first Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai detained APC’s founding fathers including Siaka Probyn Stevens on the day the Independence Day was being celebrated.
The one-party project stopped half-way with the sudden death of Milton Margai who achieved little or nothing in the development arena owing to the obsession of a one-party nation.
Sir Albert Margai who took over the premier by a seeming use of force appeared to be fiercer in the pursuit of one-party state than his predecessor.
In his transient tenure, Albert Margai quickly passed bad laws leading towards which paved the way for a creation of one party in Sierra Leone so that no challenger could emerge in the political landscape.
Instead of paying attention on the development project, all their attention was focused on strengthening SLPP on the political corridors. Like Milton, Albert also failed to in the development aspect, and the worst came when he failed to hand over power after losing the 1967 elections to Siaka Stevens owing to the fear his laws would hunt him and the party.
His failure to give up power triggered a military take over that set in motion a number of coups that defined Sierra Leone of the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Such military take-overs, a product of resistance to Stevens’ electoral victory went a long way in taking Sierra Leone backwards at a time many African countries were moving forward.
Such act of lawlessness on the part of an SLPP politician threw SLPP in the political wilderness and remained there for over two decades not until another light of hope shined on them when Ahmad Tejan Kabba from Kambia district won 1996 general elections for SLPP.
Instead of seeing the electoral victory as a platform to change negative public perception about SLPP by rolling out critical development projects, they continued their move to ensure that SLPP reign indefinitely by also getting rid of top APC politicians through treason charges.
The strategy they adopted at that time was to ban the national army who were accused of connivance with the rebels to cause mayhem on peaceful civilians.
The decision illegalise the army whose existence was guaranteed by Sierra Leone’s Constitution was highly provocative and strategic since SLPP politicians knew that there would be a backlash from the khaki boys, and the only way was to overthrow the government.
It came to pass when the army toppled the Kabba government in May, 1997 and set up the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, a move that invited the greatest resistance from ECOMOG troops led by the Nigerian army.
Countless number of people were killed by indiscriminate bombing of congested communities of the capital city in an effort to restore President Kabba.
The pro-government militia force, the Kamajors under a de facto command and control of Samuel Hinga Norman also had a fair of the heavy death toll in the city which they perceived as an opposition stronghold. Norman who was subsequently indicted for war crimes was the Internal Affairs Minister.
In 1998, the AFRC was kicked out of power and Kabba was brought back from Guinea where he sought asylum and continued his presidency.
24 military officers who were accused of taking part in the 1997 coup faced firing squad while perceived collaborators were lynched by SLPP-backed thugs.
A prominent APC politician, Alhaji Musa Kabia was burned alive and vultures preyed on his remains on the street. A renowned Temne chief and muslim cleric, Abu Black and Shek Mustaba respectively succumbed to similar fate.
A huge number of APC politicians who were to die by hanging at the country main prison got back their freedom after rebel forces attacked the capital city in Januray, 1999 in retaliation for their slain colleagues.
All in all, President Kabba also spent much of his time in seeing that APC is wiped off from the political landscape and achieved almost nothing in national development in spite of fabulous amounts of money donated to Sierra Leone in the post-war period.
Sierra Leone however started to see development after Ernest Koroma became President in November, 2007 and left in March, 2018 with a strong foundation which Bio should have capitalised on to move Sierra Leone, but the move to protect SLPP held him back.
But, he chooses to entrench SLPP in governance when he does little for the country. Sierra Leone, as such, will see another flurry of development projects only when APC comes back to state governance.