Sierra Leone Political Updates: Joseph Sherman's Baboon Buttocks

Joseph Sherman Minister?

APC's Joseph Sherman, one of the ubiquitous loyal attack dogs of the current APC administration of President Ernest Koroma seems to be going through some tormenting mid life crisis, and he is not a happy man.

 Joseph Sherman came to light and vigor after the appointment of Cocorioko blogger Rev. Kabbs Kanu as Minister Plenipotentiary in charge of rebranding Sierra Leone. Sherman saw an opportunity like this in the future and he dove into blog journalism with fanatic passion.

Sherman, an unrepentant admirer of the political clergyman took the rebranding program seriously. Starting with the poorly written APC Times he soon opened his own propaganda online portal, The Salone Monitor in which he constantly glorified President Koroma and vilified the political opposition. As one of Kabbs Kanu's journalistic apostles, Sherman literally interpreted rebranding to mean going after opposition politicians and independent or pro-opposition journalists with reckless abandon. One of the many pseudo intellectuals that populate the journalistic landscape of Sierra Leone, Sherman decided to spend the last few years aggressively engaged in the deification of Ernest Koroma and the belittling of his political opponents. He engaged in this exercise with such religious fervor, that sometimes you could hardly tell if he was talking about Ernest Koroma, or the Savior Jesus H. Christ himself.

Sherman Going To Church

One of Sherman's targets over the past five years was Sierra Leone's premier tabloid journalist now turned politician Sylvia Olayinka Blyden. Writing in APC times of May 20, 2009, Joseph Sherman had this to say about Blyden "The tyrannical nature of self-styled publishers like Sylvia Blyden and her agents of destabilization (SLPP), has serious implications for the political community and the peaceful citizens of Sierra Leone." (Sherman, 2009) When at the end of last year Sierra Leone's veteran journalist Ibrahim Ben Kargbo was relieved of his ministerial duties in the information ministry, Sherman had this mean spirited thing to say about Ben Kargo, "the heavy artillery of criticisms that is coming from the opposition against President Ernest Koroma for the dismissal of I.B. Kargbo signals that he was working secretly with the opposition in sabotaging the president agenda of development and progress for Sierra Leone.  His dismissal has therefore created a vacuum in the camp of the opposition and they are left with no alternative but to lambast the president for his keen sense of wisdom." (Sherman, 2013) In essence Sherman not knowing the president's intentions, already started to write the political obituary of IB Kargbo, before the poor man had even started to clear his paraphernalia from his office. Unfortunately for Sherman, Kargbo has been reappointed by the President in the capacity of an adviser and to add salt to injury, Blyden was able to hitch a ride on the last batch of Koroma's bloated bureaucracy. Sherman is not a happy man!

IB Kargbo Having The Last Laugh

Sherman viewed the Sierra Leone opposition, particularly the Sierra Leone Peoples Party not as political adversaries,  but as enemies of President Koroma. His basic point in the 2009 rant lambasting Blyden and other non-bootlicking journalists in The APC Times was that journalists in a democracy were the conscience of the public. By displaying impartiality, they undermined the interest of the public by compromising the sources which the public rely on to make judgments about the government. In other words, by constantly praising President Koroma, he Sherman, was performing a great service to the public, while journalists that did not jump on the hallelujah bandwagon were doing some sort of disservice. The fallacy of his convoluted logic seem to have been lost on him.

Sherman was a major proponent of the Cocorioko philosophy that opposing President Koroma was unpatriotic and patriotism in the Sierra Leone context was measured by how loudly or passionately you extolled the celestial values of Ernest Koroma and how talented you were at making bad news from Sierra Leone look good.

Now it seems that poor Sherman, the portly fellow whose Sierra Leone origin has been a matter of some debate, had actually just been a lying, conniving jerk who had hoped to be rewarded with some sort of political appointment after five years of licking the President and Kabbs Kanu's boot so devotedly, that he could not tell the difference between shoe polish and butter. The appointment of the last set of ministers in the president's government without including the name Sherman and the appointment of his arch-nemesis, the shape shifting Blyden as special assistant to the president has finally sent Sherman over the edge and it seems that he needs a serious divine or medical intervention.

In a widely publicized rant that has gone viral on the Internet and social media, Sherman, vented his frustration at his interpreted exclusion from the president's cabinet in an article that could only be described as having been written while drunk and crying into a can of cheap beer. Using a highly inappropriate metaphor, Sherman compared the Koroma government to a baboon that had been helped to go upstairs and was now showing its gratitude by showing its displaying its red buttocks to those that had helped it climbed. In his opinion, the APC diaspora was responsible for ascendancy of Koroma to the presidency and by not giving them jobs he was being ungrateful. The fact that APC diasporans like Alex Mansaray and Conteh had turned out to be mere criminals did not register to this miserable fellow. The type of disappointment that would let anybody write this type of rubbish about their country's President must be deep. Very deep and Sherman may need help.

Sherman's Baboon Buttocks

What Sherman is failing to realize is that talent at spreading propaganda is not a requirement for government service. What did Sherman expect, to be made minister of information because you have the idle time to sit behind a computer blogging and pretending to be a journalist? President Koroma, by appointing these fellows who spend most of their working day on Facebook while drawing hefty government paychecks had already set a bad precedent. That is the reason why this uninfluential political nobody will even imagine that he could be appointed as anything in the government of Sierra Leone.

This rant nullifies Kabbs Kanu's insane notion that a president should only appoint those close to him. Look at how unhinged this creep has become, disrespecting your president because you were not sent as Minister plenipotentiary to Ukraine? Between these sycophants, opposition defectors and friends of the president, how will he ever appoint everybody as minister. The cabinet is already bloated as it is. Now Alieu Iscandri would also want to be made Minister of justice.

Sherman, my advice to you is to take your day job seriously. That letter was immature, opportunistic and naive. What have you done for Sierra Leone that you would expect to be made a minister? Sierra Leone has all its problems, but does not need a government of clowns.You would just be better served taking your baboon with the red buttocks and keeping it in a cage.