By Ibrahim Alusine Kamara (Kamalo)
The atrocities of Julius Maada Bio-led SLPP Paopa government knows no bounds, resulting in its financial deficiency to roll out major programmes for massive delivery of basic services for the people as it used to be in the first term of his presidency.
External funds could no longer be substantially mobilized from outstanding donor and development partners, and though resources are mobilized internally, they are too meagre to offset the government’s many expenditures on its various development sectors. This has resulted in dire economic situation for the government, thus, setting in little or no delivery of meaningful national services.
Political analysts believe there existed the spacious room for quick amends that would have circumvent the ugly political and socioeconomic situation that has become unfit for Sierra Leoneans’ bearing, but the anathema came from Paopas’ proclivity for being cruel to the country’s democratic fibres, even if heavens fall!
Despite efforts from all worldly fronts to reverse a consequential act, Bio and his acolytes have clutched stiff and unyielding fingers on all the amenities of the 2023 elections, though much to the chagrin of the international community and the peril of country and its citizenry.
A governance vacuum subsequently set in as the All Peoples’ Congress (APC) party’s elected representatives recused themselves from taking part in both central and local government functions. And though democracy was collapsing as the country was slipping back to a one-party system of government, yet, it’s the APC, International Community, and the suffering Sierra Leoneans’ funeral, not the Bio Paopacy’s!
The Paopa caused the International Community to intervene, leading to a dialogue that ignited the Agreement for National Unity, which in turn gave birth to a Tripartite Committee of a three-way leadership that reportedly consumed about five million dollars just in its six months’ mandate of examining, among other things, the 2023 electoral cycle.
The three-way leadership committee went into the nitty-gritty of its mandate, and laid bare all that occured during the 2023 electoral cycle. From its Report, the Paopa Chief, Bio, could not be authenticated as the genuine winner of the 2023 elections. However, though not all but 70.2 percent of the overall Results Reconciliation Forms (RRFs) from polling stations across the country proved that the APC contender pulled 57.15% as against Bio’s 39.80%. It is suggestive, therefore, that according to the constitutional threshold of 55%, Bio did not win in the first round of voting.
The aftermath of the Tripartite Committee’s work leaves a worrisome situation, and almost two years after the 2023 elections, much mixed feelings exist among Sierra Leoneans, as they remain in the middle of the road regarding the political fate of their abundantly endowed nation.
In the aftermath of the 2023 elections rigging, and defiling Sierra Leone’s democratic moral standing, the country has plummeted into more abject poverty. And in the face of this, lies, deceitfulness and callous-mindedness remain the moral category in the daily affairs of men in governance. They would deliberately make things more confusing in order to conceal the reality of the time, and the truth, which the world knows has always set mankind free, spinning liberty and state development, no longer reigns supreme even as it is the pillar of humanity. Those who, therefore, tread on the path of truth and dare tell it to power instantly become the worst enemies of state. Most of such men did not go free without being hunted directly, or indirectly, to face the wrath of politicians that dwell in the monstrous course, using their extremist paopa supporters and activists.