Is The SLPP Sincere In Its Peace Overtures?
By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Chinua Achebe says in his novel, Anthills of the Savannah, that “if you want to get at the root of murder [in a village], you have to look for the blacksmith who made the machete”. But this, he notes, is only intended to enlarge the scoop of our thinking not to guide policemen investigating an actual crime. So, this is the starting point for today’s One Dropian dropping.
I will repeat what I wrote in my One Dropian dropping of 16 August 2022 that in any country where the Rule of Law seems to be in the dustbin; where Justice is selectively selective; where the ruling party strongly believes that opposition parties should be treated like enemies of the state; where the government is not thinking of how to improve the lot of its citizens but how to rig the next elections, and in a country where the ruling elite appear to be exhibiting extreme supremacist tendencies; things are sure to go haywire!
And I will keep repeating that the government of President Julius Maada Bio appears not to be sincere in its peace dialogue overtures.
The government’s peace overtures have always been half-hearted at best and deliberately botched at worst. Have right-thinking Sierra Leoneans ever wondered why is it that it is only when the United Nations General Assembly meeting is around the corner that the Bio administration will throw the olive branch to the main opposition party?
For the past three years, the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) will only engage traditional and religious leaders; selective members of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) notably the pro-government ones, the media, and other “stakeholders” on the eve of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. In short: the SLPP government seems to believe that dialogue with members of the opposition should not be a continual process but a one-off affair. They always initiate discourses for photo opportunities but these dialogues fizzle out after the rolling cameras are switched off.
The Bio-led government has missed several opportunities at reconciliation and national cohesion. In many instances, President Bio’s words appear to be hurtfully hurtful to the hurts than serving as balms to balm the hurts. And in many situations that require the President to show statesmanlike attributes; he squanders them by showing uncalled-for soldierly bravados. Should I remind President Bio that former leaders like Charles Taylor of neighbouring Liberia, Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, and Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir of Sudan had, in their time as Heads of State, showed more soldierly bravados than him?
Unlike President Bio who is only seen in a tight-fitting military fatigue with epaulettes of a Brigadier; Taylor and al-Gaddafi were often seen wielding automatic rifles, and al-Bashir brandishing a sword, as they tried to show-off their soldierly bravados. The former Liberian leader was convicted for crimes committed by forces under his watch and the former Sudanese leader is wanted by the International Criminal Court for some of the crimes committed by the “Janjaweed”. In both instances, the leaders did not personally or physically commit the crimes; but are held responsible for crimes committed under their watch!
I also want to advice President Bio that what he says and does today might be used to determine his status tomorrow. Those who are telling him to act like a tough Brigadier today might not be the ones who will “bear the greatest responsibility” tomorrow if that toughness leads to something else. I can understand the urge to behave manly whenever a man’s manliness is appealed to or questioned. But in some instances, manliness could be out of sync in situations where a little touch of humanity could be sufficiently sufficient.
And many times, President Bio reminds me of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s play, “Death of a Salesman”. Like Loman, our Commander-in-Chief seems unable to face the present because he appears to be still living in his presumed past glorious days. And whenever he is faced with current realities, our Head of State usually lapses into his bygone days when might was right and jaw-jawing with one’s opponents seen as weakness. The comparison between President Bio and Willy Loman seems striking to me because the more they indulge in their illusions, the harder it is for them to face realities. Take the President’s illusion that his government has waived taxes on rice and gas, but the reality is: the prices for those two items are still high compared to neighbouring countries.
One of the problems I have with the Bio-led administration is the dishonest manner in which it always looks at national issues. One cannot be cooing like a dove and swooping like a starved hawk! A President cannot be Dr Jekyll on camera and Mr Hyde in camera. The Bio-led administration must not be talking about the Peace and National Cohesion Commission and in the same breath referring to citizens as “terrorists” and “insurrectionists”. Since 2018 to date, all the problems in Sierra Leone appear to be the making of the SLPP—both as a party and government!
Like Achebe says, “if you want to get at the root of murder [in a village], you have to look for the blacksmith who made the machete”. But I do not need to look for the blacksmith since the murderer is still holding the stained machete dripping wet with blood (figuratively, of course)! I hold the standpoint that most of the problems Sierra Leone is facing today started from how the current Speaker and Clerk of Parliament were appointed; the removal of ten Members of Parliament from the All People’s Congress (APC) through sleights of judicial gavels; the systematic sackings of citizens with north-western names perceived to be APC supporters, and the selective manner in which the law enforcement authorities have been carrying out their duties.
Evidence abound of the law enforcement authorities turning a blind eye to unethical activities from, or by, members of the ruling SLPP. When the current Minister of Transport and Aviation, Kabineh Kallon, snatched and destroyed ballot boxes during one of the three reran lone by-election at Constituency 110, and was captured by rolling cameras; the police did nothing. When Abu Abu the Resident Minister North-East, Austin Johnny an SLPP Young Generation operative, and the SLPP Chairman in Kono District made statements that seemed to be bordering on the exterminations of supporters and stalwarts of the APC; the law enforcement authorities were willfully frightened into a state of inertia.
And from the time when some citizens were killed in cold blood in Tonko Limba, Mile-91, Makeni, Tombo, and the Pademba Road Correctional Centre in Freetown to date; President Bio or his party has not offered an apology in the spirit of collective responsibility. As Wole Soyinka notes, in his prison memoir The Man Died, “Even in totalitarian states, the time comes when past ‘errors’ are admitted, high-placed criminals unmasked and victims rehabilitated, mostly alas, posthumously!” So, when will that time come for the SLPP government to accept and admit “past errors”? That might be the starting point for a sincere drive towards peace and national cohesion.
medsankoh@yahoo.com/¬+232-76-611-986
