By Kabs Kanu
If the incoming United States Ambassador, Bryan Hunt, had any doubts about the briefings he had already received from the White House, the U.S. State Department and his predecessor Ambassador David Reimer that he was coming to a country with a bloody dictator , it took the honored ambassador only a few days for him to see the reality with his own eyes.
The Ambassador presented his letters of credence to the Sierra Leone Government ( As actually reported by the U.S. Embassy website ) , only on Monday September 10, 2023 and the next day ( Yesterday ). he had the opportunity of seeing with his own eyes that Sierra Leone is a dictatorial and totalitarian state, with a shameless and bloody dictator. The events of yesterday would have left Ambassador Hunt with no other conclusion but that he needed no further evidence that everything he had heard and read about Maada Bio was true. He is a diabolical dictator and a killer.
When he arrived in Freetown last week, many other things would have impressed on Ambassador Hunt that he has come to a country that was not at ease and where the citizens of the country were very unhappy. He would have read from some of the online and print newspapers and seen with his own eyes that the Sierra Leone is groveling under the excruciating weight of a dictatorial government. He must have seen the tense and unhappy atmosphere, the indescribable hardships and the feelings of hopelessness and despair on the faces of the people on the streets.
And in the midst of it all, Ambassador Hunt would have been shocked to see the armada of heavily armed soldiers and police and armored vehicles and military trucks the SLPP Paopa Government had flooded the streets with in readiness for the massive demonstrations the People’s Power in Politics , led by ADEBAYOR, had called for on Monday September 11 to protest against the rigged June 24 elections and the nasty and brutish economic hard times and suppression of the people by Maada Bio and his SLPP Government. I am sure that disgust, disappointment, shock and surprise were all emotions that the new ambassador struggled with and he must have been asking himself : “Why bring out the Calvary against peaceful citizens who only wanted to exercise their constitutional and democratic rights to protest against the manner they are being governed …. So, it is true, after all, that Sierra Leone is in a full-scale dictatorship ? “
Right away, Ambassador Hunt would have been fully convinced about the enormous task he will be facing in Sierra Leone-,to project, propagate and promote the democratic ideals on which the fraternal relations between the U.S. and its traditional partners in development are built. I am sure he would have been saying WOW, WOW, WOW, so many times.
And then came yesterday September 11, 2023 when many citizens decided to hearken to the voice of the social media fighter against bad governance and human rights abuses, ——ADEBAYOR, —-who , though living all the way in Holland, is able to move people in Sierra Leone to act. Shops were closed; schoolchildren, street traders , commercial vehicle drivers and workers stayed away while pockets of demonstrations took place in different locations in the city and parts of the Northern region.
