…The Electoral Coup
By Ibrahim Alusine Kamara (Kamalo)
Sierra Leone stands at a crucial juncture, and its political leaders are faced with a choice to make or break a nation endowed with abundant natural resources, and once being the admiration of the world. They can make it once again by defining its future and transform it into a nation of democratic values, that of brighter hopes and prosperity. Or, they can break it by continuing to sail it on the perilous waters of corrupt conscience with malicious feat of strength and cruelty underneath the surface for self-aggrandizement!
For the New Direction or Paopa Government led by President Rtd. Brig. Dr. Julius Maada Wonnie Bio, they may be remembered not just during their stewardship, but even when they would have vacated the corridors of state governance, for the atrocious acts they ceaselessly let free in the political landscape.
Immediately after Bio was declared victor of the 2018 presidential elections, the paopas or Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) supporters, mostly the extremists, were all over the place committing political cruelty against perceived opponents. The lethal violence they inflicted on targeted opposition associates does break the heart and torture the emotions whenever it rings a bell in the mind.
Sadly, instead of nipping the chaotic situation instant, President Bio and few of his henchmen were seemingly patting their followers on the backs with silent appreciative voices as if they came with a mission different from governing a one country, one people. In a way, no sooner their government became fully operational than they toed the line of their supporters, employing what may be termed as “terror tactics”, characterized by harassment, intimidation, suppression and oppression, letting loose not just physical and psychological violence, but trauma on opponents and dissenting voices!
This atrocious situation raged throughout Bio’s first term of office, and it could not cease even as the country was busily engaged in the process to hold general elections on 24th June, 2023.
The Paopa government had woefully failed then in all development sectors, and Sierra Leoneans were now angrily waiting to give them a good run for their money at the polls for such glaring ineptitude, and record of human rights abuses.
The people had envisioned that a new era was going to emerge after the 2023 elections. Hopes were, therefore, high and bright that the new president would unify the country, track it on the path of development and usher in prosperity for all in the short to medium run.
However, the infamy for political cruelty quickly reared up ugly heads, as the paopas hurriedly took a dive in everything that could make them democratic. Thus, shortly before the elections, SLPP supporters were fired up into storming the opponents’ homes in some parts of the southeast, beating anyone within reach, and either looting everything they could lay hands on, vandalizing, or setting their houses ablaze while chasing many of them out of their towns!
At last, the Bio-led SLPP rigged the elections and manipulated its results to their own advantage. Sierra Leoneans’ hopes were squarely shattered and blighted, and are now suffering the brunt of such perversion and bastardization of democracy, for donors and development partners have since incapacitated Bio’s government by what could be termed as “covert” economic and political sanctions.
Being a donor-driven nation, therefore, the Paopa government has lost the ability to deliver effective social services for the people, let alone undertake any major development programmes. While an end to this vacuum is yet to be in sight, until then Sierra Leoneans continue to be rocked by a tornado of stagnation amid hopeless financial tangle.