By: Winstanley. R. Bankole Johnson
None of us – not even in the wildest form of our imaginations – would have predicted that within less than five years in power, this SLPP government that has always prided itself of comprising a leadership team with the highest forms of academic excellence and array of technocrats in Public Sector Management, Development Planning, Information Technology (IT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) could have collectively caused their leader and our President and Fountain of Honour Brig. General (Rtd.) Julius Maada Bio so much distress this close to our next elections. But by their failure to have done due diligence on a well-known charlatan within the sub-region like Professor Edward Olubode Phillips a.k.a Olufemi Lade Adeyemi, Chief Executive of the Ebenezer Almighty Project (EAP) Group of Companies before he perfected his scam about his imaginary 5,000 Motherland Dream City Smart Luxury Homes right at the heart of State House, that in summary is exactly what all the President’s men and women have succeeded in doing to his image, and by extension to the image of our beloved country Sierra Leone. It is for that reason that believe heads should roll among those bearing the greatest responsibility within the “Office of the president” and beyond for such a humongous scam to wit:
- The Anti-Corruption (ACC) Commissioner – who even delegated one of his most senior officers to make a statement at the conspicuous launching of the EAP Project
- The Chief Executive of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).
- The Head of the Presidential Task Team for Infrastructure
- All Advisers within the “Office of the President” and beyond that had been involved in the project from its conceptualization to its termination by the ACC
Culpable
I have deliberately omitted names Board Members and those of the CEOs of State Owned Enterprises among those culpable, because I know that in this present environment of “State Capture” of almost every MDA, whatever errors or omissions they might be culpable for would not have been possible without the direct interferences and instructions from the corridors of power. Hence my focus only on the sources of such oversight powers at State House for serious reprimands. From the evidences adduced thus far all of them stand culpable, but I would name the heads of both the ACC and the FIU as being the most culpable for a failure by their outfits to have done due diligence or at least to have corroborated same extensively using the same painstaking patience that they have continually mustered when investigating each and every opposition APC functionary and to charge them to court even for offences they are not convinced have any thread of evidence to convict beyond all reasonable doubt.
Scam
When the idea about a Motherland Dream City Project to be situated on a 53 Hectares landsite at York was first floated, I told some of my SLPP friends that it could only be a scam as empirically, no serious investor would finance the piloting of such a Mega-million dollars scheme in any African political environment that is as polarized and as volatile as ours barely six (6) months to their next general elections. But they (as usual) poo-pooed my reservations as “APC Sour Grapes”. Now the disappointing aspect of this Motherland Dream City sleaze is that it would have still been progressing smoothly or the seriousness of the scam suppressed – in the same way the matter of the Reefer Frozen Chicken Container would seem to have either died naturally or been suppressed – if (according to the now famous unofficial public sleuth Dr. John Idriss Lahai) the Government of the United States had not intervened and insisted of reversal or return of a US$200million “Seed Funds” allegedly paid into a local Project Account opened and operated by agents of the said EAP Project. It is largely for that reason that I am insisting that heads within the outfit described as “Office of the President” should roll irrespective of whose Ox is gored.
The Press Statement by the ACC Commissioner is belated, puerile, and unacceptable especially coming so long after they had participated as accomplices to the facts of misleading and misdirecting their Principals/Superiors and to the extent of even having dispatched an “official representative” that made statements extoling the virtues of the Motherland Dream City Project at its launch on behalf of the Commission. As a matter of fact to me that ACC Presser summarizes why:
- The public believes that all their pappy show about fighting and curbing corruption are like filthy rags before the International Community
- We will never succeed in clinching the MCC Compact under this government that would appear to be sneaking in between sleazes
- The former American Ambassador once urged the ACC Commissioner to: “…..begin to looks inwards upon his own SLPP guys instead of focusing only on the Red Guys….”””
So among my reasons for this sweeping recommendations that heads must roll within the “Office of the President” are that one does not or cannot conjecture how many other such phantom projects this government might have launched to date that would eventually crystalize into huge scams ranging from:
- The 25-year undocumented leasehold of the new Lungi Airport Terminal to Turkish investors that continues to await awaits Parliamentary scrutiny and approval.
- The 25 year Government Wharf Turkish Terminal Management Project
- The ceding of a 250 Acres of Prime and Virgin Rain Forests purportedly rich in natural minerals deposits of Gold, Black Sands and endangered species of Whales at Black Johnson to the Chinese for an unspecified tenor for US$55Million Grant for a proposed Fish Harbour.
- One is also at a loss as to what extent the feasibility studies for this aborted Motherland Dream City Project could have cost this nation to date before the ACC emerged with their feeble Presser on its stoppage and arrest of the Chief Scammer Prof. Dr. Olufemi Adeyemi a.k.a. Edward Phillips. I think the ACC owes us that information update because it is our money.
So taking a cue from the Motherland Dream City scam and the extent to which the Presidency has been embarrassed, how confident is anyone that President Bio is safe with the kind of “Advisers” in his “Team”? That question becomes relevant when one considers that away from this failed investment project, it wasn’t long ago that he was again recently hoodwinked into signing off “Presidential Clemency” for an alleged “Murderer” from the Pademba Road Correctional Center that could not have been unconnected to the disgraceful exit from office of a former Attorney General and Minister of Justice. So please permit me to be particularly worried about the quality of advice President Bio could have been getting from his “Advisers” and the likely dangers of his inadvertently ceding off lands with substantial economic value to potential investors for pittances.
Krios
The financial and reputational dents to the country and Presidency aside, another worrying aspect of this failed Motherland Dream City Scam (as it would seem to have been with the proposed Black Johnson land sites all within the Western Regions), is that it is our Krio peoples that usually emerged the worse out of it. Their bona-fide hereditary rights to lands and properties were not only denounced and extra-judicially seized/confiscated to the State, but their petitions for judicial redresses were either not assigned for fair hearings or that subpoenas from Judges to the Lands Ministry in general or former Lands Minister Dr. Denis Sandy in particular were contemptuously ignored and with impunity. The few Krios that attempted to show even the most pliant forms of verbal resistance were mercilessly beaten by government security forces into capitulation. At York Village for example, the Headman was even taken into incarceration for days and only released upon pain of his eternal silence. Those were moments erstwhile Lands Minister Dr. Denis Sandy apparently recruited purposefully to dispossess and displace Krios of their inheritances in the Western Regions so relished, that he would occasionally pose for pictures on nearby road highways aping the Chinese Kung Fu “Flying Mule Kick of the legendary Bruce Lee, as if to signal his readiness to do worse to Krios people if further challenged.
The Presser from the ACC virtually terminating the Motherland Dream City scam could well be an aberration divinely influenced and affording a breather for all those Krios whose lands were forcibly taken away from them on account of this failed Motherland Dream City Project to now be reconsidering re-instituting fresh legal actions against the government for recovery of their inheritances. The US$1.5Million amount purported to have been put aside for their deprivations is nothing but an insult to their collective intelligence. And no less a person than our Fountain and Head of State should know that, which is why in their own tradition and culture, lands are never sold off but held in trust upon trust for succeeding generations.