Sierra Leone News Round Up: The Sheep's Buttocks

Ex. President Julius Maada Bio

President Ernest Bai Koroma

Today is Friday and as elections in Sierra Leone get closer the tension is rising, the expectations are high as the fissures in the society have deepened and are continuing to widen. As opposed to ex-President Tejan Kabbah who saw the need for national cohesiveness, President Koroma is pathologically partisan, with a winner takes all mentality. Politics in Sierra Leone today is simple, either you are with the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC) or you are in the wilderness. With government being the largest direct employer in Sierra Leone the chances of getting a good job in Sierra Leone these days is directly proportional to the number of red shirts in your wardrobe. The situation is such that a man in Makeni almost divorced his wife for buying him a green shirt as a birthday present.

The need to identify with party extends even to funerals. Funeral convoys in Sierra Leone are now bedecked with party colors. Could you imagine, wearing red to a funeral! But this is Sierra Leone, and these days, we take politics to the grave. If red and hell did not have such an intense color similarity, there would definitely be a brisk business in red coffins these days in Sierra Leone, to convince the president that your dead uncle was also APC. Imagine going to meet your maker in a red coffin, the choice between heaven and hell would be just a little bit easier.

The last past week the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) painted the city green and at the end of the week the APC plastered the same city red and as we did not see many other other paints, we can safely assume that the red and green parties are the main parties, ceteris paribus.

Then the political clowns also came out. Mohamed Bangura the flagbearer of the UDM was at the presidential rally of the APC as the presidential candidate of his own party endorsing the presidential candidate of the APC, Ernest Bai Koroma. If you are confused don't worry, even Sierra Leonean politicians are confused about Sierra Leone politics.

Then we heard news that President Ernest Bai Koroma and the SLPP leader Julius Maada Bio were supposed to have a presidential debate, American style. Sierra Leone Association of Journalists' Umaru Fofanah was giddy at the prospect of the intellectual tangle. But as with all things Sierra Leone, Sylvia Blyden came out the next day stating  that the debate would not happen and that she was due to talk to the president. Voila, by week's end, we have heard that the debates have been cancelled, much to Facebook's chagrin.

The disappointment of the president withdrawing from the debate is palpable on the blogosphere. Facebook has be a lit with apprehension. Many questions had already been generated. To Bio: what can you say about those passports? What about Bambay and all those Strasser killed, where you involved? Why does John Leigh hate your gut so much? Have you ever turned down a romantic offer from Sylvia Blyden, if not why does she hate you with such a passion? How are you going to treat all your party defectors if you win?

To President Koroma: If you believe in attitudinal change, what is the attitudinal change in reappointing a world renowned master scammer and celebrated 419 expert as a vice president? You promised that the price of a bag of rice will be twenty thousand Leones and now it is two hundred thousand would you say that you lied or you have failed woefully, or was it just a case of poor mathematics? When President Kabbah was leaving office he listed the roads that he had secured funding for and that were under construction. Now you are claiming most of these roads as having being constructed by your effort; why are you not honest with the Sierra Leone people? Your aviation minister was embroiled in a scandal involving a planeload of cocaine, why have you reappointed him as your adviser? Why did you create an aviation ministry for a country that does not have a single plane, was it the reward to Kemoh for sponsoring your campaign? Many American business men are after your vice president for him to  repay them after defrauding them of huge sums. Now that you have reappointed him are you going to convince him to repay these monies or are you going to tell him to tell them to go to hell? You promised that Freetown will have continuous electricity 90 days after you were president, where is the continuous electricity. You promised to run the country like a business, is Sierra Leone now a family business?

Well, the debate did not happen and Sylvia Blyden thumbed her voluminous nose at Umaru and said, "I told you so!".

So we did not get the presidential debate we wanted, what about a vice presidential debate between Alhaji Aljazeera Sumana and Dr. Kadi Sesay? The questions they will ask Sumana; he won't do it, he won't dare. It will be like a debate between an ebola virus and Penicillin. There will be no debate or may be there will be one between Mohamed Bangura and Charles Margai.

Then there was the case of convoy obstruction. APC operatives are hopping mad, saying Maada Bio obstructed the president's convoy and told the police commissioner to warn the SLPP not to do so again and of course IGP Munu warned the party. SLPP Secretary General Banja Tejan-Sie said that there was no blocking and the statement was meant to cause chaos ahead of the election. Many people are concerned that the president's convoy has started mysteriously appearing whenever there is a large gathering of SLPP. Is it Bumbuna all over again? Everybody knows that the president has right of way, but the president can also not be obstructive. The presidency is a respected position and politics must not be used to cheapen it.

In my hometown Segbwema, Robin Fallay is promising State House jobs to the youths, what a phenomenal rise in the APC for my brother, from Kenema jail to State House employment consultant. Well since he joined APC, the elections fraud case against him has mysteriously been dismissed by Sierra Leone's infamous Kangaroo courts. He was guilty when he was SLPP, but he has proven his innocence by joining the APC.

 However the wise men of Segbwema have told Honorable Fallay the following:
" A sheep will be dragging its buttocks on the street thinking that it is making the town dirty, but in truth it is just destroying its own buttocks."

Segbwema Blogger