The vicious and heinous stabbing of six members of the All People’s Congress ( APC )  allegedly by supporters of the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party ( SLPP ) last Saturday during the Bye-Elections at Fourah Bay in Freetown is a clear demonstration of the point COCORIOKO  has been making from time immemorial that there are certain ill-disposed politicians who have diabolical plans to take Sierra Leone back to chaos.

IBRAHIM LEWALLY : VICTIM OF THE SLPP STABBING ORGY IN FREETOWN

President Koroma should not sit back  and think that this problem will go away all by itself . COCORIOKO  believes that the  problem of violence will continue if it is not nipped in the bud as a matter of despatch and urgency. Sierra Leoneans are living in fear that with three vital elections slated in the country this year, violence will sweep the nation and likely lead to another war if the present impunity by certain politicians is not checked.

There is no true and patriotic Sierra Leonean who would like to see war engulf the country again. The last time this nation tasted war that went on to ravage the country for 11 terrifying years , Sierra Leoneans and foreigners within her borders suffered horrendously. Nearly half a million people perished at the hands of combatants and thousands more are today disabled from amputations and other macabre injuries inflicted on them by the fighting forces. Not only that, the country’s infrastructure was badly damaged and progress in the nation reversed by a hundred years. We have not even recovered fully yet from the destructive effects of the war. Why should we allow nebulous individuals with dangerous inclinations to push this nation back to war ? It should not happen. COCORIOKO wants the government to act now to stop the enemies of the state from succeeding to send the nation back to war.

STAB WOUND OF THE APC CHAIRLADY AT FOURAH BAY MARIAMA SUMA-PHOTO CREDIT : Awareness Times

 

Time for the ’ OVER-TOLERANT GUY’  image is over in the interest of national peace and security. The President must crack down on violence with all the urgency required. Those busy  fermenting and executing violence should be arrested and put on trial and if found guilty must be frogmarched to prison. The worst thing that President Koroma should allow is for people to take advantage of his good heart, fairness, softness, liberalism and tolerance. Politics comes to the point where the President has to put his foot down firmly and set a marker. Those who want to regain power by intimidating, threatening and brutalizing their opponents must be dealt with severely to send a strong message to others that Sierra Leone is not a land for lawless political perverts.

LANSANA FADIKA : ANOTHER VICTIM OF SLPP VIOLENCE—Credit: Awareness Times

It is high time we stop fearing what the international community will say if we crack down on violence.  We care for their perceptions and expectations of us but they know that  violence is destructive to the socio-economic and political health of the nation . And if violence gains roots in our society, the very international community will blame the government.   The APC  owes the nation a duty to protect the lives and properties its citizens and aliens in our midst. The government must not shirk that responsibility because of what people who do not understand the devillish intentions of certain politicians will say.  If innocent people get killed and their homes destroyed, the international community will not bring back lost lives or build back the homes of survivors. All they will do is sympathize and provide money for rebuilding which will not bring back the lives of those who would have perished  at the hands of anarchists bent on making everybody suffer once again in the nation. The troubled spots of the nation should be flooded with an army of Police and whoever is found breaking the law should be arrested and brought to trial. We have to set a deterrent in Sierra Leone or the spirit of impunity will continue.

In fact, COCORIOKO feels that it  is also high time  the APC Government sat the international community down to aquaint them with the dastardly acts of certain politicians in our midst. The APC Government should waste no more time to let the international community know that the real intentions of the political perverts and reprobates is to make Sierra Leone ungovernable. They know they will not win the presidential elections.What they are doing now is grand dress rehearsal for November when they shall have lost the presidential elections.

If it never occured to President Koroma that all this violence is designed to overthrow his government, the brazen and demonic impunity with which the Fourah Bay stabbings were carried out should give him the cue. Certain people want to take the presidency from him illegally and unlawfully by force of arms. It is “Pa-O-Pa”  ( Either me-at-State House -or-nobody else ) politics at play. Since the international community are our donor and development partners -Who have been doing a magnificent job to help us consolidate peace and reconstruct our nation–the government owes them a duty to apprize them with what is really going on in the country. Let them get the facts straight and hear them from the Chief Executive of the nation.

President Koroma must summon diplomats and representatives of foreign missions and organizations in Sierra Leone to State House to give them a thorough briefing about the political events in the country and the satanic intentions of the anarchists. In addition, government representatives should be despatched to foreign capitals to brief stakeholders about events in the country.The government should have by now noticed that the ill-disposed persons who want to bring war back to Sierra Leone are very busy misinforming the international community and stakeholders. They have stationed their men with contacts to the international media abroad to damage the image of this government through erroneous and distorted op/ed articles in foreign magazines and newspapers.

To just demonstrate how much foothold the anarchists have established with Sierra Leonean journalists working with the foreign press , since the APC operatives were stabbed, no correspondent  in Freetown has sent any article to the AFP , Reuters, BBC , UPI or what -have-you to report on exactly what happened at Fourah Bay last Saturday . The only one report so far mentioned nothing about the supporters of the opposition stabbing APC members.  If the people stabbed had been SLPP supporters, the foreign media would have been awash with reports by these biased Sierra Leoneans working with the international media , accusing the APC of perpetuating the acts , with attendant distasteful photos. What this also means is that it is high time the government too hooked up with the BBC and foreign news agencies and start briefing them on a day-to-day basis about the situation in Sierra Leone. Information Minister IB Kargbo and his Deputy Sheka Tarawalli should constantly brief the international media. It is dangerous to keep silent over what is going on in Sierra Leone and leave the agents of the anarchists the playing field to continue distorting stories to the BBC, Africa Confidential and other foreign media.

We hope the APC Government  has also not missed the deafening silence of the biased  so-called civil society groups  and  human rights organizations operating in the country. They are all pro-SLPP.  As at the time of writing, none has written to condemn the stabbings of the APC supporters. They were quick to  condemn violence and accuse the APC when the SLPP Headquareters were attacked and also when the SLPP Presidential candidate , Maada Bio, was stoned and injured in Bo. But since Saturday’s events, it has been silence all the way.  We are highlighting all these anomalies in the nation so that the government will realize what it is faced with and  take the appropriate preventive measures to arrest anarchy in its track . Politics has infested every facet of society and no organization is free of playing partisan politics. It is a shame to our nation.

President Koroma must bring all these problems to the notice of the international community so that when these fake foreign correspondents, civil society groups and human rights organizations attack the government, it would be clear that it is only “Pa-O-Pa”  Politics that is in action. The government must not expect the international community to read between the lines. President Koroma must tell it all so that they will understand what is really happening in the country.

COCORIOKO WANTS PEACE AND TRANQUILITY IN SIERRA LEONE. WE ARE TIRED OF ALL THESE CHAOS AND VIOLENCE. MAY BE, THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY CAN HELP US DEVISE MEASURES TO STOP SIERRA LEONE FROM SLIPPING BACK INTO WAR.