By Kabs Kanu
Some frenzied and disappointed Sierra Leoneans like Nasser Ayoub, who mean well, have written comprehensive articles on social media suggesting to the opposition All People’s Congress ( APC) what it needs to do to regain power in Sierra Leone. The ideas provided by these Sierra Leoneans are brilliant and well-appreciated but let me waste no time to tell you that as long as it is President Maada Bio and the Sierra Leone People’s Party ( SLPP ) that are sitting on the chair, no amount of political strategies will make any difference for any opposition party in Sierra Leone.
This is because the opposition has not and will not lose elections in Sierra Leone going forward because of inept campaign strategies. They will continue to lose elections as long as President Maada Bio, the thief , who , whenever he had gained power had stolen it and appointed himself head of state, remains alive . In 1996, he robbed his boss, Captain Valentine Strasser in broad daylight and staged a palace coup. In 2018, he came to power by another hopelessly rigged election, aided by another criminal elections commissioner called Infa Allie Conteh and the then British High Commissioner, Guy Warrington, who effected regime change.
So, as long as Maada Bio remains alive, it is goodbye to democracy in Sierra Leone. As long as Maada Bio is alive, Sierra Leoneans must also say goodbye to their peace, stability, sanity, national development and transformation.
Maada Bio is an ill wind that will never blow Sierra Leone any good. Maada Bio is the cursed chicken that former President Ernest Koroma failed to put in its coop because of over-confidence and God know why and the cursed chicken Ernest Koroma spared has come home to roost, with deadly consequences.
Koroma had every opportunity to have stopped Maada Bio from seizing power again in Sierra Leone. He had the luxury of conducting that famous inquest on the extrajudicial murders of Bambay Kamara and 27 other citizens, animalistically butchered to death by Maada Bio and his colleagues in the NPRC junta—For which Bio could have been found culpable and barred from ever running for office.
While handing over power in 2007, the late President Kabbah disclosed in his handing-over notes that Maada Bio, as junta leader, had stolen U.S $18 million from the national coffers. Koroma could have also set up a commission of inquiry on Bio and that also could have been good reasons for him to have been banned from ever contesting for power in Sierra Leone. But again, President Koroma failed to do the needful.
We know that President Koroma was a good man with good motives, a man who wanted national peace and cohesion and a leader who did not want to upset the apple cart. He was forgiving and thought that if he gave Maada Bio a second chance, he would have repented and reinvented himself. But look at where it has landed us, and the very Dr. Ernest Koroma. A monkey will never change its black hands, the local proverb goes.
Maada Bio is a very wicked and hardened dictator and nation-wrecker as seen from his behavior with the 2023 elections for which he is now in hot waters from America, the EU , Britain and the world community . Bio has destroyed democracy in Sierra Leone and has set a precedent that will harm our nation for years to come. Bio has left a bad and smelly taste in everybody’s mouth.
He is a reprehensible and incorrigible bigot, with his ugly head only full of ugly ideas about how to promote tribal and regional hegemony and so nothing any opposition leader ever does in Sierra Leone by way of strategies will tip the scales. Bio will kill and kill and kill and kill to make sure that the ballot box does not work for anybody.
The thief Maada Bio will steal and steal and steal and steal every election, which is why his supporters say that the APC will never regain power in Sierra Leone. Yes, indeed, unless Sierra Leoneans and the world decide how yo put paid to this puffed up monster, this megalomanic bully that had filled the Elections Commission with his tribes people, elections will never produce the will of the people again in Sierra Leone . His psychotic SLPP supporters boast on social media that when Bio’s term expires, he will hand over power to Kandeh Yumkella and after Yumkella, Bio’s shameless, TikTok-dancing wife, Fatima Bio will have it next. How low can a nation sink?
So while Maada Bio is still alive, here is a good advice for Sierra Leoneans: Say goodbye to democracy and the peace and sanity of your nation. Unless you remove the monkey from your backs, there will never be free elections in Sierra Leone. But at what price to the nation ? I pity the poor people who will bear the brunt of the consequences. Sierra Leoneans will only continue to suffer and will continue going down, down, down.
May God bless our country and save the state.