In a deceptive article posted on the social media Facebook to be specific by praise singers of, the governing Sierra Leone People’s Party-SLPP clearly exposed the lies and deceptions of the Government of President Julius Maada Bio to the people of Sierra Leone by deliberately misleading them into what the Chief Minister Professor David John Francis described as a “peaceful and prosperous and a middle income country”, which is very far from the harsh realities on the ground. Does Prof. Francis want to tell this nation and the world that he does not know what are peace, prosperity, and middle-income status of a country?
Oh how this medium wished the author of the cheaply worded article would have been capacitated enough to know what is called a peaceful nation when there are so many early warning signs militating against the peaceful coexistence of the people, especially political opponents of the main opposition All People’s Congress-APC most of whom are languishing in detention at Pademba Prison.
That in itself is very disappointing for a whole political administration to be talking about things that are far from the truth irrespective of the policy statement maker’s credibility being at stake as long as the remark has been made in favour of the Government it matters not reputation but a mere point scoring. So be it fact or fiction, they care less about its ramifications. For them, they are plus though not really reflecting on the living standards of the ordinary people as long as they are trying to win hearts and minds they can pretend to have done all sorts of miracles that are not even in existent.
The phrase middle income is a borrowed from the last administration of former President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma who worked tirelessly and to some extent actualized that through direct foreign investments in diverse growth sectors, which is hardly seen in the so-called middle income status of his successor, President Bio’s SLPP rule.
What is worth knowing from Prof. Francis is his ability to ascertain what exactly peace, prosperity and that of a middle income status when gains recorded during the last ten years by the last administration have been drastically reversed by the incumbent, on grounds of implementing new direction agenda, which has failed the people with the worst disappointment ever as there is nothing to talk of in terms of human capital development.
Comparatively, Rwanda, Ethiopia and other countries have maintained positive trajectory unlike Sierra Leone under the present leadership of President Bio is not the case.
All what is being experienced under the SLPP new direction regime are instability of undemocratic rule, political intimidations, of opposition APC members and supporter, selective justice by the Sierra Leone Judiciary, economic injustices, gross human rights violations, exclusive governance, bias anti-graft battle and lots of other undemocratic practices bringing the country’s peace index very low. Yes Prof. Francis keep telling fallacies
Yes indeed Sierra Leone has conducted democratic elections and transfer powers peacefully but since the new Government of President Bio came on 4th April, 2018 to date there has been no peace in the country especially for the opposition APC party members and their supporters. Some opposition members and supporters are still in detentions as prisoners while others are being forced into exile for fear of political intimidation by the Government and ruling SLPP operatives. Is that what Prof. Francis call peace, prosperity, middle income status? You need to tell us Prof. Francis. We deserve the rights to know, why the low ranking of Sierra Leone in development by the United Nations Human Development Index 2019, not cock and bull stories.
As a matter of fact, in a situation where there are so many inadequacies in the areas of health care delivery, energy, water supply, education-stalling the much trumpeted free quality education, alarming food insufficiency including high rate of unemployment as well as so many other issues militating against national development, absolutely no need for the Government of President Bio to be telling the people middle income status and peace in the absent of all these facilities that are expected to be provided by a Government that promised to do so much.
And for the health sector it is no secret that government and healthcare workers and the sector in general, allowances are hardly being paid to doctors and nurses, performance base finance are no longer disbursed to health workers at hospitals so why the need for the said increased budgetary allocation to the health when there is no motivation in the sector even amid the deadly COVID19 pandemic.
It is therefore worthy to note that the sector is given the required attention by the government of President and the SLPP. Rather gains made in health during the last decade have been reversed in the sector to point that patients including pregnant women, lactating mothers and under-five children no longer receive the attentions they used to get during the days of former President Koroma’s free healthcare compared to now. Yet Prof. Francis and his Government continue to refer to the present inhumane state of affairs as peaceful with middle income status, while majority of the people are deteriorating in abject poverty in the wake of massive exploitation of Sierra Leone’s natural resources, leaving the people dying of hunger and starvation.
The stalling education sector has recently dismissed over nine thousand teachers their names from the payrolls while other remained unapproved with no salary hitherto they were urged by the anti-graft commission to declare their assets for reasons best known to the government and the line ministry.
In a nutshell where all expected from a Government that vowed to deliver so much on its campaign promises for close to three years now and continue to deceive the masses with unacceptable lies about bringing the country to peace and stable coexistent with a middle income level that we are yet to see, sound so deceitful to the people of Sierra Leone.
And for us as a nation that is not peace as what the Chief Minister called it and a middle income status, we want to categorically state that there is no peace and human capital development where people are less protected, political and democratic freedoms are being regularly trampled upon by Government and its ruling party operatives, selective justice, imprisonment of opposition APC party members and supporters should be described as peaceful coexistent at all. If that continue to happen then the government, Prof. Francis and the ruling SLPP are continuing to deceive the masses with intentional fallacies.
