By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Writers (and if I should add: Journalists), as Wole Soyinka once puts it, “are usually the first to smell the reactionary sperm, before the rape of a nation takes place”. That reactionary stench has always been smelt by some Sierra Leonean journalists/writers such as Chernoh Alpha M. Bah of “The Africanist Press”; Dr Sylvia Olayinka Blyden of the “Awareness Times” newspaper; Mohamed Gibril Sesay the author/poet and political commentator; Kabs Kanu of “The Cocorioko” online newspaper; Lawyer Basita Michael the say-it-as-it-is political and social commentator; Jimmy Kandeh the fearless academic, and a handful of others including myself.
In hindsight, I now realise that when the then Mr Julius Maada Bio was talking about change, during the 2018 Presidential Debate in Freetown, he might have been cloudily talking about changing the financial statuses of himself and some members of his immediate and extended families. Now, just a glance at his appointments one will notice that the Bio Family is one of the greatest beneficiaries of the current regime as President Bio’s sisters, nephews, and nieces (James, Tennyson, Yankuba Askia, Francess, Admire, Agnes and others) appear to have been given some of the most mouth-watering jobs in the Bio-led administration!
But the main thrust of today’s One Dropian dropping is not about the issue of rags-to-riches as personified in some members of the Bio family who are insultingly flaunting their Nouveau riche statuses on social media with insulting rudeness. It’s not about the issue of “unexplained wealth” that appears to be pervading the Bio-led administration but to which my good friend at the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Francis Ben Kaifala, is pretending as if he was once the Head Boy at the Milton Margai School for the Blind! And it will not be about the unashamed perpetration and perpetuation of nepotism which seems to be a sort of a new political normal in the country. It’s about the seemingly conspiratorial rape of Sierra Leone by the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) while the All People’s Congress (APC)’s current National Executive appears to be playing the lookout so that the SLPP will complete its rapacity with ease!
Despite year-in and year-out, several Audit Reports by Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL) have shown that the Bio-led administration is recklessly reckless on fiscal matters with the recklessness of a reckless drunken sailor; despite President Bio appears to be an international tourist who seems determined to be on The Guinness [Book of] World Records as the most travelled Head of State in the world; despite the wage bill is bloated like an unidentified bloated corpse at the Lumley Beach in Freetown, yet Dr Samura Kamara is so engrossed in his “Electoral Justice” campaign (or is it now a “splinter group” within the APC?) that he doesn’t seem to have the time to go on national radio or television to criticize the excesses and senseless spending of the Bio-led administration. And Dr Samura Kamara, the APC 2018 and 2023 Presidential Candidate, is one of those APCians who should be in good stead to pick holes in the SLPP economic policies because he is an expert on economic and financial management issues. But he might be keeping mum on the SLPP’s maladministration and horribly horrid human rights record for some reasons which he might be keeping close to his chest! Even if he might have developed a hoarse voice due to his indefatigable preaching of “Electoral Justice” to the APC grassroots; he can still do Op-eds on the disastrous economic policies of the SLPP government and publish them on both the traditional and new media from the safety of his computer at home.
And as for the current APC National Executive, they have developed the unpleasant habit of locking the stables long after the horses have bolted out of the barn. They normally issue tasteless press releases long after the issues on which the press releases are based on have been dead and buried by the SLPP government. As I see it, the current APC National Executive could be aptly described as a group of people who are only good at issuing posthumous press statements in which they criticize an inept SLPP government but they too are guiltily guilty of being an inept main opposition party!
The irony here is not only laughable, but the pretentiousness has the ring of the toad calling the serpent a fool, to quote Syl Cheney-Coker. The laughable thing is the pretentiousness of the current APC National Executive believing, or pretending, that the Bio-led SLPP government is more inept than them! In my opinionated opinion, ineptitude is ineptitude no matter the colours of the icing being iced on the euphemistic cake! And the pot could not claim the sole bragging rights to reference the blackness of the kettle’s bottom! My point is: just as it will be good and pleasant for all APCians to unite with the aim of balloting the SLPP out from State House in 2028; so it will also be good and pleasant (oh my God, I’m sounding Bob Marley-ish here) for progressive APCians to “drain the swamp” (to borrow President Trump’s phrase) at the party’s Brookfields headquarters in Freetown!
As things now seem, there appears to be a sort of conspiratorial collaboration between some members of the current APC National Executive and the Bio-led SLPP government. This seemingly unholy alliance could be likened to that of a man raping a damsel inside a farm hut while his enemy-friend playing the lookout with the aim of having his own “turn” after the rapist has finished his session (Well, whilst growing up at “Soja Tong” in Freetown’s Central One of old, Dr Oloh’s boys normally referred to such a practice as “Communist”.).
But the beauty of all the beauties is the factual fact that each time a rape of Sierra Leone is about to take place, or has taken place, there are some gutful Sierra Leoneans such as Chernoh Alpha M. Bah; Dr Sylvia Olayinka Blyden; Mohamed Gibril Sesay; Kabs Kanu; Lawyer Basita Michael; Jimmy Kandeh, and a handful of others who criticize and challenge the status quo even if that will make some members of the Bio-led administration stick up their fingers in “obscene gestures” (to quote Soyinka again). These are some of the Sierra Leoneans who are not afraid to court controversies even if they are damned after writing or speaking truth to power!
So, in essence, not all Sierra Leoneans will sit and watch while the SLPP rapes Sierra Leone (Salone) as the current APC National Executive plays the lookout. Because whenever some journalists/writers “smell the reactionary sperm”, they will raise the red flag to flag the intended rape!
medsankoh@yahoo.com/+232-76-611-986; https://nationalistsl.com
