By Jerry Saccoh Kai-Lewis
After 63 years of independence and being blessed with an abundance of natural resources, the people and nation of Sierra Leone continue to suffer.
The people’s suffering and hardship have been linked to poor standard of its leadership class, unbridled and shamefully obvious corruption, electoral manipulation with its attendant rigging, disenfranchisement and violence. The nation’s political climate has been called toxic, for choking the life out of the unity, freedom and justice that is necessary for its development, peace, and national cohesion. Politics has killed and made it impossible for nationalism to take root and for the people to work together on an agreed and planned for national development agenda.
But despite their continued hardship that is blamed on poor leadership and corruption (in government, private enterprises, education, religion and every fabric of the society), the people continue to put their hope and trust in public leadership.
The country since independence from Great Britain has been ruled by two political parties, the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and the All Peoples Congress (APC), on whom all the blame for where the country is positioned among the community of nations and on all human development indexes can be heaped on.
Based on how these parties have managed the country’s affairs under their respective leadership, the nation today continues to suffer from the corrupt practices they have allowed and sometimes encouraged to take root.
Corruption has eaten into every fabric of our society in education, business and election management, the media, and government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) including the three branches or arms of government in the executive, legislature and judiciary; even religious institutions and human rights and advocacy groups have not been spared from the grip and effects of this national and human development killer. Today the nation suffers from a trust deficit between people as this foundational attribute for all relationships is sorely lacking in people to people exchanges.
But despite how far we have fallen and made to suffer from all that has happened since independence, the nation at this extant moment is sitting on the precipice of change. But as expected there are many people who want for the status quo to prevail; who will not want for real change to come to Sierra Leone because it will expose them and put a stop to their way of life that continues to act as a detriment to our peace, security, progress and development.
Elections in any country are contentious events. There will always be a loser and a winner, with the former almost always claiming that he or she was cheated and that the winner is operating on a stolen, conferred or illegal mandate. These claims are expected to happen, for which we have laws and procedures to address. The law is righteous; it keeps us in line and acts as a reminder of what is right, true and just. If the law is applied based on its intent and true spirit, nothing should be impossible to resolve.
Therefore the men and women trained in the law who should act in the interest of upholding the law and the integrity of their offices are expected to be above reproach and possess the highest character of impartiality. They are expected to act in the best interest of the law and the people the law serves and protects. Sadly for Sierra Leone, this has not been the case. The law and procedures that address how our governors and other public and private people are to behave have been so compromised and abused that people don’t even seek the judiciary or courts for redress as they are expected to act in line with what those that hired them to such positions expect, also those that line their pockets and grease their palms.
Today, Sierra Leone sits on a precipice of change. This change can either end up good or bad. This change, however, rests with those in our legislature, judiciary, and other legal and regulatory institutions.
After close a year of waiting for the resolution of the elections review process by the Tripartite Committee the end result is that out of the 80 recommendations, 14 will require constitutional amendments, 26 will need parliamentary approval with a further 14 needing regulatory frameworks for them to be fully implemented. Sorting out our electoral process will be the start to Sierra Leone finally getting the kind of leadership that can bring about the changes we hope for as a people especially the rule of law, not the usual attitude from the top of bypassing procedures.
However, the million dollar question on the people’s lips is will both the APC and SLPP continue to commit to the full implementation of the Tripartite Committee recommendations that are wholly dedicated to the interest of the people and nation that suffer from these electoral impasses? Will they commit to fully being dedicated to seeing the 14 recommendations that need constitutional amendments to make them legal and the 26 that need parliament’s approval by working together in the House and using this as part of the constitutional review process that was started by the APC but remains not concluded? Will the state institutions, the Sierra Leone Police, the Office of National Security and the other elections management bodies allow for the necessary regulatory frameworks to bow to these recommendations that are right, good and just for the people and state to progress?
At the end of the day the APC will have to trust the parliament and judiciary to do the right thing and see to it that our elections narrative is left in a much better footing than it has ever been. At the end of this recommendation implementation phase we expect that the interest of the nation will be at the top of the agenda and on the minds of everyone involved.
It is the hope of the struggling people of Sierra Leone that now that we have arrived at this precipice on our march to national development and respect for the rule and procedure of the law we will not allow for a situation where the law would be seen as fighting against the interest of the law. In the interest of Sierra Leone divorcing from all the issues of the past, let us do away with the corrupt practices of the past that have only hurt and separated us but be dedicated to the obeying and applying the rule of law to every public and private matter.
We need answers from above from all those in authority to restore confidence in the people that implementation of the Tripartite Recommendations is indeed possible.
