If SLPP are winning the propaganda warfare as they lie , why are they so worked up about what we write ?

February 18, 2012 | Filed under: Breaking News,Diaspora,Editorial,Headlines | Posted by: Cocorioko Newspaper

You can see that the Sierra Leone People’s Party ( SLPP ) are not only losing the popularity and credibility contest with the ever-rising President Ernest Bai Koroma ; they are also losing the propaganda warfare. Wherever President Koroma goes, the enthusiasm with which the surging crowds and excited Sierra Leoneans rush to welcome and hail him send the clear message that in the Sierra Leone of today, there is yet to emerge a man that will eclipse the popularity of President Koroma in the race for the Presidency. If we did not have a blind and wrongheaded opposition, the message would have been crystal clear by now to the SLPP that as far as elections are concerned, 2012 will be another Koroma time in Sierra Leone.

Another area the SLPP is losing is the propaganda war . The revelations by the FOREIGN CONFIDENTIAL magazine alone that there was a clandestine relationship between the departed Executive Representative of the UN Secretary General (ERSG) Michael Schulenberg and the party have given victory to the All People’s Congress ( APC ) Government and its media operatives. The revelations are so damaging that they have overshadowed all the SLPP ‘s posturings in the Associated Press and Reuters. All that was necessary for victory was for the pro-government forces to establish that Schulenberg compromised his diplomatic neutrality in Sierra Leone. Now, every right-thinking Sierra Leonean and foreigner in our midst will know that the media was right all along to question the questionable ties between Schulenberg and the SLPP.

FOREIGN CONFIDENTIAL even went further to calm all apprehensions when it said ” Informed sources in Freetown say the envoy’s anti-Government bias was well known among expats and foreign diplomats. “ This is confirmation of what COCORIOKO has told the nation all along –That the APC should not bother about the SLPP’s posturings to the international media.

The international community and stakeholders they are trying to impress have representatives on the ground in Sierra Leone and these representatives report to their principals in their various capitals on a regular basis. If you want to know more about your country, the best people you can rely on for credible reports at timesare the representatives of foreign missions and stakeholders in the country. This is why during times of threatening conflicts, they have the ability to withdraw their personnel at the right moments. With their more advanced information-gathering and satellite technology, they are able to get more reliable information about the movements of dissident forces and incidents of the escalation of chaos in all parts of the country , for instance , than local information media or even the government. Whenever you see the U.S or Britain , Peace Corps, World Bank etc. withdrawing their diplomatic staff, know that serious chaos is about to set in, even though it looks calm and peaceful presently. That lesson was well learned in Liberia in 1990. While Samuel Doe was on radio and TV daily assuring the nation that there was no cause for alarm and that the rebels had been pushed back across the borders, these foreign missions and the Peace Corps withdrew their personnel. It did not even take long before the rebel war escalated with the Charles Taylor forces moving deep into the heart of the country and overunning all of Nimba and parts of Margibi as well as Lofa and Sinoe Counties.

A very graphic and colorful proof that the SLPP propaganda has not impacted negatively on the international community is the fact that foreign donor agencies and the Britton Woods institutions continue to support the Ernest Koroma Government during elections year. Unpopular governments that have lost the goodwill of the international community and donor agencies have aid cut off during elections year . The IMF, DFID and the World Bank discontinued all aid and support to the SLPP Government just before the 2007 elections. In direct contrast, the APC is still receiving budgetary support and final assistance at elections time. This is further demonstration of the fact that President Koroma continues to enjoy the goodwill and support of the international community , donor agencies and stakeholders.

The SLPP is winning nothing, not even the propaganda warfare. When we see opposition online and print newspapers obsessed with papers like COCORIOKO, you know that there are jitters in the SLPP camp. The New People Online, Unity Now and more lately the Critique Echo and the Sierra Leone View –not to mention pro-SLPP online discussion forums–now on a regular basis gratitiously feature COCORIOKO . Only last night, a poorly-written and incoherent article titled , “Praise-singing APC not the way forward in Sierra Leone”, which first appeared in the print edition of UNITY NOW , has now been published in the New People and other SLPP media and the New People’s Editor, Sheku Kallon, shamelessly posted it in the various forums on FACEBOOK. The article is mainly a tirade against Cocorioko. http://www.thenewpeople.com/index.php

Some of our editors and press attaches laughed last night when they read the article. This is not just an obsession with our paper but a vindication that we are affecting the SLPP profoundly. What we write is definitely hitting the bullseye and exposing the SLPP to ridicule . If people really thought that we were nothing but sycophants and praise-singers, they would not have been so obsessed and concerned with what we say . When it is not Sama Banya, it is Unity Now. When it is not Unity Now, it is the Global Times. At times, they devote whole editions to us . It is an undisputed fact that COCORIOKO is a shaker and maker of public opinion in Sierra Leone. The SLPP can deny all they want, but there may be some element of truth in what many Sierra Leoneans have said in online forums that we are their ‘digba soweis’ or nemesis. If not, how do you explain their obsession with us ?