By:Joseph A. Kamanda
Sierra Leone politicians, their programmes and activities are always synonymous with raising hopes and aspirations of partisans of both political parties. The governing Sierra Leone People’s Party – SLPP and the defunct opposition All People’s Congress – APC in all their election campaigns have always promised good governance, and the provisions of better livelihoods for the people. Julius Maada Bio during his presidential campaign in 2018 and in 2023 promised Sierra Leoneans paradise ranging from democratic good governance, that is, consensus wherein his administration should always consult with other political actors including the opposition and Civil Society Organisations, fight against public sector corruption, transparency and accountability to the people for the offices they hold, upholding the rule of law, effective and efficient public sector and other open governance principles. These are expected to be in full play under the Bio leadership as promised during his first and second presidential campaigns.
But can the expected goodies transform into Bio’s dream of paradise and heaven he promised barely six years down the line?
Manifestation of the Bio administration in providing the much talked about heaven he promised while campaigning in 2023 and in 2018 is being clearly displayed in deliberate denials of the people’s rights to transparency and accountability on the parts of public servants in the last six years. Heads of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies have not been providing answers for the managements of the respective offices they hold, forgetting that they are being paid from taxpayers’ moneys. This, according to records has trended on from 2018 to date as if the country is not governed by modern democracy, wherein public accountability and transparency are matters of must. Failure in checkmating MDAs has so far paved a smooth path to the recycling of corrupt public sector workers as it were recently done by the presidency by swapping one corrupt agency head from one department to the other, while the other was reinstated, all in furtherance in to satisfy ruling SLPP partisans’ selfish desires. That has eroded public confidence and trust in the sincerity of government’s commitment towards fighting graft. Public sector corruption by high placed state actors have rendered the state ineffective during the period under review to an extent that president Bio recently urged members of his administration to improve of their performances in their various offices, from where he hardly sack none of them. All of these are not the prosperity the people of Sierra Leone were promised by president Bio in 2023 and in 2018 during his presidential campaigns. Refusal by the Bio-led administration in meeting these goals for the betterments of the masses are seen as mere political leadership betrayal by the SLPP and Julius Maada Bio as the chief executive of the state.
A brief reconsideration of gains made by his two predecessors – Kabbah and Koroma should throw us some light. In 1996 when the then SLPP leader and the then presidential frontrunner, Alhaji Dr Ahmed Tejan Kabbah of blessed memories, vied for the presidency of the nation, he promised to end the 11 years civil war. Though his works were largely influenced by distractions from the war with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, Kabbah accomplished certain campaign promises. He especially ended the civic conflict through with support of the United Nations Security Council, the Economic Community of West African States, the African Union and the British Government, who helped ended the war. Thereafter former President Kabbah opened negotiations with the RUF rebel leader, Foday Saybana Sankoh in 2000 and signed several peace accords with him including the July 1999 Lome Peace Accord, the peace accord that saw the RUF rebels for the first time subscribing to a temporary cease-fire agreement though it later collapsed. Kabbah didn’t relent and continued with campaigns for international support from the United Kingdom Government, and the UNSC, AU and ECOWAS, who collectively defeated the RUF rebels, restored peace, order and stability to Sierra Leone.
Among other aspects of the fulfilments of Kabbah’s avowed presidential campaign manifesto promises made to the nation in 1996 and in 2002, was his fixed focus on sustaining the gains he had made so far. He then prioritised consolidation and peace building, unified Sierra Leoneans through the ‘Love One Another’ national campaign and reconciled the country through the TRC process. Towards ending the culture of impunity, Kabbah accepted the UN offer to set up the Special Court for Sierra Leone which brought to book those who were responsible for crimes committed against humanity in the civil war. Most of the Kabbah-led SLPP electioneering campaign promises somehow met the satisfactions of the people. His successor Ernest Bai Koroma of the APC inherited good number of the legacies which he also brought to logical conclusion under the Agenda for Change and later under Agenda for Prosperity.
Koroma’s APC is unarguably one of the traditional old school political parties that had occupied the country’s leadership seat for over two decades. From former President Siaka Probyn Stevens to Joseph Saidu Momoh, who was overthrown by National Provisional Ruling Council military coup in 1992. The APC under the Koroma as the opposition leader apologised for all wrongdoings his party was accused of at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing. Koroma ended up succeeding former President Kabbah after winning the 2007 presidential election.
Prior to his presidency, Koroma made series of promises during his campaigns. Key among such pledges was meant for the transformation and improvements of the livelihoods of the people through economic viability, prosperity, infrastructural development across the board, energy, the list was long. In fulfilling his Agenda For Change (AFC) promises, Koroma opened up the country to trade, commerce and direct foreign investments, which brought in scores of multi-national investment portfolios such as the Cape Lambert, London Mining, Africa Mineral, Shandong and others that restored investors’ confidence.
Kabbah and his successor, Koroma didn’t promise Sierra Leoneans heaven, neither paradise nor earth, but did their bits in meeting most of their presidential campaign pledges as they were in their respective political parties’ manifestos. They both left Sierra Leoneans with lasting developmental legacies in diverse sectors.
Governance being a process of continuity, Koroma’s affirmed reforms touched areas that ranged from democratic consolidations through support and creations more institutions as it was done by Kabbah. He embraced peace building and the protection of Human Rights like Kabbah who established the Political Parties Regulation Commission, National Social Security and Insurance Trust, National Revenue Authority, Audit Service Sierra Leone, Independent Police Complaint Board, Justice Sector Reform Unit, the Sierra Leone Roads Safety Authority, the Ministry of Presidential and Parliamentary Affairs and host of other legacies that formed the basis for democratic good governance as part of his promises.
For Koroma and the APC developmental blueprint –the AFC and Agenda For Prosperity (AFP), they also fairly distributed national programmes and activities in areas of energy and electricity, the three town water project, road infrastructure, etc. that touched the lives of hundreds of Sierra Leoneans across the board.
Under the Bio administration the New Direction and Big Five Game Changers campaign promises of bringing Sierra Leoneans paradise and heaven on earth are yet to be fulfilled and delays in accomplishing the much anticipated are by the day raising eyebrows for suspicions of betrayal, deceitful and leadership failure on the part of government and the ruling SLPP.
These opinions keep emerging from among critical minds including even members and supporters of the incumbent political party amidst growing economic challenges; a situation the Bio regime also promised fixing during his campaign, but has since day one to date been struggling to stabilise the national economy, reversing defiant foreign exchange rates and the whole thorny problem of fiscal management of the country’s financial basket. Failure in handling and addressing the abovementioned problems have in the last six years considerably caused hikes in the costs of food, pump price of petroleum products as well as other essential commodities.
These have so far left many with the fixed notions that the Bio led government cannot address minor problems of good governance, national progress in the areas of infrastructural development, fix and stabilise the national economy, protect the rights of citizens, uphold the rule of law, systematic and rigorous evidence in decision making. That is how it has always been during the days of civilised democracies of the Kabbah and Koroma eras which didn’t promise the heavens but delivered as promised compared to incumbent Bio who vowed to fight corruption but now has more evidences of grand public sector corruption under his leadership than ever before.
