By Kabs Kanu
Once again, we at COCORIOKO want to thank everybody, from the local and international elections observers , to the diplomatic missions within Sierra Leone and our international partners-In- Progress like the United States, Britain and the European Union ( EU ) who did not mince their unblemished and flawless integrity in calling out Sierra LEONE’S President , Maada Bio, for his shameful, brazen-faced, outrageous and mortifying broad daylight robbery of the people’s mandate in Sierra Leone.
President Bio ‘s Elections Commissioner, Mohamed Kanneh, committed an egregious , atrocious and grievous crime at the behest of the president that should not go unpunished . Public expectation in our criminal justice system is that when a man commits a crime, he has to be punished for it.
It was the late erudite American freedom fighter and Black Power activist, Dr. Martin Luther King, who uttered the immortal statement that “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice . “ The foundations of our civilization would be seriously threatened and would crumble if we allow social and political criminals like President Bio and his elections commissioner Mohamed Kanneh to steal an election with such bold- faced impunity and get away with it .
Elections robbery is a heinous crime within the local and international context. It is a transnational crime as bad as drug running, human trafficking, smuggling, etc . If not punished effectively, it will spread like a deadly virus and infect other actors and actresses in our international sociopolitical superstructure.
Bio’s scandalous robbery of the Sierra Leone elections must not be allowed to stand. Everything must be done to ensure that President Bio is forced to order a rerun of the elections to make right the mandate of the people. The nefarious and criminal results announced by the elections commissioner declaring Maada Bio winner of the June 24, 2023 elections in Sierra Leone must be overturned .
The international elections observers and international stakeholders must continue to insist that the disaggregated polling stations results, as recorded in the Results and Reconciliation Forms ( RRFs ) should be released by the elections commission to show how Mohamed Konneh arrived at the final figures that declared President Bio winner of the elections. We know that this is a tough order that Konneh would never be able to honor because the figures on the RRFs which were never used to determine the winner would be found to be at variance with the cooked up figures entered into the ECSL computers by Konneh and his criminal acolytes.
It was the All People’s Congress ( APC ) presidential candidate, Dr. Samura Kamara , who actually won the June 24 elections as demonstrated by the figures on the RRFs, certified copies of which were handed over to polling agents, representatives of political parties, elections observers and diplomats . How shameful indeed that Bio and Konneh stupidly thought that they would have gotten away with the spectacular crime of announcing results completely different from the certified results on the RRFs. They underrated the intelligence and integrity of everybody, including the robbed people of Sierra Leone.
Bio , as we said before, is an impudent criminal, no different from the thief being chased by angry market women at King Jimmy or Krootown Road market. He has no respect for himself or civil and legal order. He thinks he can do anything and get away with it.
The APC should have no business with a hoodlum like President Bio. On no account should they cooperate with him. APC MPs and councilors should continue to boycott their seats and the APC should never work together with an illegal regime like the SLPP Government.
Conversely, the international community should continue their rejection of the results and their resolve not to recognize Bio as the legitimate president of Sierra Leone . If he insists on his impunity, they must not hesitate to impose wide-ranging sanctions and travel bans on him and his hand of thieves. It is only when such concerted actions are taken against President Bio that justice would be done and other African leaders would see and fear to repeat Bio’s crimes against the hapless people of Sierra Leone.
Maada Bio is nothing but a criminal and an illegitimate president. He has been made to know that already but more needs to be done. Bio must be punished so that no Sierra Leone president develops the audacity and impunity to commit such crimes again in the country.
