By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Sometime ago, when some SLPP-leaning Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and so-called human rights activists engaged in political poaching in the name of seeking the interest of the ‘Commonweal’ in relation to the reduction of fuel prices; the fingerprints of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) were seen in their modus operandi. They were unmasked and their efforts ended in humiliating fiascos which produced the comical situation of people hiding in smoke.
And because the provisional 2015 Housing and Population Census results have shown that the SLPP would, definitely, be footnoted in the next General Elections; the dumb and paralysed SLPP seems to have contracted the services of political mercenaries. But because most of the well-known SLPP-leaning CSOs and so-called activists are now ashamed to play the ‘rented opposition’, Abubakrr Messeh Kamara aka “Pipul Pikin” seems to have accepted that role with alacrity.
And to all intents and purposes, Abubakrr Messeh Kamara aka Pipul Pikin is the classical fabled fox who will always regard the grapes as sour just because he was once prevented by the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) from reaching them. For starters, when the APC was creating the National Youth Commission (NYC), Pipul Pikin was one of those who drew all imaginable and unimaginable strings to become Commissioner of the NYC. But when he didn’t get that job, he decided to go for the jocular. And since then, he has created the niche for himself of being everything anti-APC or anti-Ernest Bai Koroma.
And true to form, Pipul Pikin has been playing that role with the eagerness of a brilliant Class Five pupil. For his latest “6 Million Plus People Campaign” is an indication that he is very low on analytical skills. The thrust of his campaign is threefold: The 2015 Housing and Population Census provisional results are fake; that President Ernest Bai Koroma was listed as President of Koidu Holdings SA, and that the Koroma-administration is engaged in hiding millions of dollars in overseas bank accounts. And because of these wild allegations, he is now inciting sane Sierra Leoneans to become insane.
But Pipul Pikin’s doubt of the 2015 Census provisional results is illogical. Because by his ‘Pipul Pikinian’ logic, populations the world over are supposed to be static. So, according to his warped logic, if the population of Sierra Leone after the 2004 census was six-point-something million; it should follow that the population must still be six-point-something million in 2015. What I think any reasonable person should first do if s/he wants to depute the provisional results of the 2015 census is to do a tabulation of the births and deaths from 2004 unto 2015 and triangulate it with those who stood up to be counted in the last census to see if the figures add up. But since he was in a hurry to criticize for criticism’s sake, Pipul Pikin feigned ignorance of the cardinal fact that populations either increase or decrease over time because they are determined by the birth and death rates coupled with those who stood up to be counted.
And if I should stretch the argument further, the hullabaloo over whether the Northern Province has more people than Freetown, the capital, is very lame. Let’s for argument’s sake say Freetown has more people than the Northern Province but during the census process more people in the north presented themselves to be counted than those in Freetown; this will definitely reflect in the final results of those who were actually counted—including the “margin of error”.
Again, let’s say in a school Class Four has 45 pupils but when the teacher comes in to call the roll there are only 35 pupils present. Now the difference here is that though there are 45 pupils in Class Four only 35 pupils answered the roll call. If the teacher is asked how many pupils were present in class that day, s/he will not say 45 but 35. So, in my humble opinion, censuses are all about those who are, or were, actually counted.
The second accusation by Pipul Pikin and the ‘rented opposition’ that President Ernest Bai Koroma was listed as president of Koidu Holdings SA is an amateurish propaganda that will even shame Dr Josef Goebbels (Adolf Hitler’s Minister for Propaganda)! For those who know President Koroma very well will tell you that his name and stupidity cannot, and will never, appear in the same sentence. Let’s for the sake of idle argument say the President has shares in Koidu Holdings SA; do sane people think the President would have been so foolhardy to have allowed his name to be published on the company’s website as its president? Even my illiterate grannie at Four Mile will not do such unguided thing. But the problem with Photoshopped documents is that only those who sexed them up believe in them not even those they were originally intended to target.
I can understand the desperation and eagerness of Pipul Pikin and the ‘rented opposition’ to paint President Koroma as the incarnated devil which he is not. Even when the Accra Bureau Chief of the Bloomburg News Agency (which published the misinformation), Andreas R. Martinez, acknowledged that their listing of President Koroma as president of Koidu Holdings SA “was an error” and accepted “full responsibility” and apologized for their folly; the ‘rented opposition’ is still clinging onto such misinformation as if it is their life-supporting machine.
And for Pipul Pikin and the ‘rented opposition’ to accuse the Koroma-administration of being engaged in hiding millions of dollars in overseas bank accounts is not only preposterous but laughable. Because if that has been the case, the Swiss government would have blown the whistle as it did for the Abacha and other families in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. If that has been the case, the British and the United States of America governments would have stopped giving Sierra Leone helping hands. And if that has been the case, then the “Panama Papers” would have highlighted that. But since it is wishful thinking and ‘Badheartism’ which Pipul Pikin and the ‘rented opposition’ are now wallowing in; I will engage them in a debate whenever they present concrete evidence not sexed-up or Photoshopped ones.
It is on that note that I will end today’s One Dropian dropping with a quote from the Nigerian actor, Pete Edochie, which says “never let negative and toxic people rent space in your head. Raise the rent and kick them out”.
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