By Kabs Kanu
Sierra Leone is on the edge of chaos as a very defiant President Maada Bio has decided to proceed with the controversial Midterm Census , even though the World Bank and the European Union ( EU ) have terminated technical support and funding to the exercise and the opposition have intensified its protests against the census.
The midterm census ,which President Bio will be conducting today through December 20, has met with stiff rejection from the World Bank and EU . In pulling out of the census yesterday, the World Bank asserted that “several critical action points require further technical work to be satisfactorily addressed including evaluation of the pilot census, the field operation plan for the enumeration, and ensuring enumerators are adequately trained. “
The World Bank further complained that “All these outstanding actions are necessary and must be addressed prior to commencing data collection to minimize the risk of inadequate and poor data quality. There is insufficient time between now and December 10, 2021 to satisfactorily address all pending actions.” As a result, the World Bank said it was stopping all technical support and funding.
The World Bank action justified protests by the Sierra Leone opposition that the midterm census was ill-timed and illegal and designed towards rigging the forthcoming 2023 elections.
In normal circumstances, once funding international stakeholders had opposed a project and pulled out from it, the client state abandons the exercise to maintain fraternal working relations with them and to avoid opening wounds in the nation that could lead to eventual chaos. But the dictatorial, egoistic , controlling and divisive government announced that it was going ahead with the census, even though opposition parties had warned their members and supporters all over the country not to participate or allow themselves to be counted.
Rather than heed the voices of the international community and the opposition, the SLPP government prefers to further destabilize the country and rupture diplomatic relations with international stakeholders. President Bio’s insistence to proceed with the census in the face of all legitimate protests further demonstrates that he has no respect for the views and feelings of partners-in-progress and like the archetypal tyrannical and totalitarian leader is ready to plunge the nation in another chaos .
As a matter of fact, the Bio government is threatening to arrest and deal with anybody who impedes the work of census officials or speak against the census. Yesterday, the Secretary General of the All People’s Congress ( APC ) , Ambassador Osman Yansaneh , was grilled for more than two hours at the Criminal Investigations Department ( CID ) for statements he made asking party supporters to boycott the census.
However, to show how much people have now decided to challenge the tyrannical SLPP government , opposition parliamentarians , carrying placards, staged a very loud protest at the well of Parliament yesterday morning , saying NO to the illegal census. Additionally, after Ambassador Yansaneh’s grilling at the CID, a large crowd of supporters that accompanied him, demonstrated all the way from the Police headquarters to the APC office at Brookfields, chanting protests songs and still calling on Sierra Leoneans to boycott the census.
