Given the provisional results being announced on radio and today’s landmark events during which all the international observers and the Political Parties Registration Council ( PPRC ) cleared the elections as free, fair and credible, the politics of “Pa- O-Paism” ( “It is either me or trouble” ) has been handed a devastating defeat in Sierra Leone. With the ruling All People’s Congress ( APC ) sweeping the parliamentary, legislative and council seats as well as the popular votes, nothing will save the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party ( SLPP ) from tasting defeat in these 2012 elections.
It is however surprising that the SLPP Presidential candidate , Maada Bio and his handlers , continue to deceive their supporters and fanatics all over the world by giving them false hopes that they will still win the elections. It is a mark of petulence, perfidy , dishonesty and disrespect to their supporters that Bio and his henchmen and women would decide to lead their fans down the pallisades of deceit and false hopes instead of owning up that they goofed big time and are heading for the most shattering defeat in history.
BUT THERE MIGHT BE ONE FOR THE HAGUE
If the SLPP had any self-respect , dignity and sense of responsibility , they should have begun preparing their supporters at home and abroad for the inevitable— Defeat by President Ernest Bai Koroma and the ruling All People’s Congress ( APC) , who are heading for a landslide . But so far, it is vintage SLPP , the party that never accepts defeat; the party that invited the army to stage a coup in 1967 than accept defeat ; the party that in 2007 would have made Sierra Leone ungovernable when they lost the elections but for the intervention of the international community. They are at it again this year , though they are facing what is boiling down to a rout at the polls. In their print newspapers, on the internet and the social media, Facebook, the SLPP are holding their disappointed supporters hostage with bold-faced lies, distortion of facts, false allegations, unrealistic hopes and patently and deliberately misleading interpretation of statements from NEC Chair Christiana Thorpe and the international community, even as the wall continues to cave in around them. Deceit is indeed the stock-in-trade of the SLPP.
The SLPP started the whole elections with unrealistic expectations. What was fueling their supreme optimism of victory during the two year run-up to the elections and the electioneering campaign ,when they had fielded a presidential candidate and running mate who were not marketable, was beyond everybody’s comprehension. Not only were Maada Bio and Khadi Sesay hard sells, but they were facing a very popular and unbeatable candidate, President Ernest Bai Koroma, who had such a magnificent record of achievements and aura of likability that the contest was dead on arrival before it actually started. The media and concerned citizens warned them but it was all in vain. The U.S. refused Mr. Bio a visa to come to America but the SLPP refused to take a cue from all these clues. Now, the elections have come and as we predicted all along, Bio and the SLPP were no match for President Koroma and the APC. Khadi Sesay, who was touted with the prospect of delivering the North could not even bring victory in her native Rotifunk or Port Loko.
Now, instead of accepting looming defeat, the SLPP want to create a standoff in the nation. But even in this quest, they lack excuse. All along, they had depended on the international community giving them the ammunition to dispute the elections . Again, why they thought the international community would have given them undue favor over the government was another mystery. That failed. Then , when the figures started coming and they realized their bid for State House was a lost cause, they banked one last time on the international community to shore up their ploy that there were widespread irregularities during the elections . The SLPP were anxiously waiting for the international community to give them the spur. But yesterday, this very international community removed the carpet from under them by affirming the elections and describing them as free, fair and credible. Now it is the SLPP’s word against more credible and believable international observers , which is a huge dilemma. They know too well that once the observers saw nothing wrong with the elections, “an pan an pone ” ( The case is finished ). The world now knows that we conducted credible elections and is going to believe the international observers more than the SLPP and if the official results validate the provisional, the SLPP will be looked upon as a nuisance if they continue their unnecessary protests. Everybody wants to move on. The world no longer has patience for political chicanery. The SLPP could go to the Supreme Court but there will be no hope for victory there too because there is overwhelming evidence from international and local sources that the elections were peaceful, fair , free and credible. What is more, the margin of defeat is too large for the whole elections to be annulled because of few isolated incidents of irregularities. And I have never seen the Supreme Court of any nation go against the verdict of international observers, especially with the kind of peaceful elections we had. The SLPP will not stand a chance at the Supreme Court. But they will not listen.
Now, to make matters worse for themselves, the SLPP is planning to launch violence in the country. Yesterday, to prove how much God loves Sierra Leone, the Publisher of Awareness Times, Dr. Sylvia Blyden fortunately intercepted dangerous e-mails between some SLPP operatives in America and London in which they were discussing plans to unleash mayhem in Sierra Leone if the results are released and Maada Bio loses. We will give Sylvia Blyden, who unearthed the plot , the opportunity to reveal the details to the nation today in her newspaper. However , if Bio is behind the bedlam being planned in those letters, we can see him and supporters ending up at the International Criminal Court ( ICC ) as we had predicted too before.
Yesterday, another deceit being dished out by the SLPP, led by their cock-and bull- story expert , New People Editor, Sheku Kallon , was that the National Elections Commission Chair , Dr. Christiana Thorpe, plans to annul the Kono results. Somebody in New Jersey did not read the lie well and misquoted Kallon adding an adjoining to the lie that it was the Kailahun results.It is amazing why these SLPP supporters do not get wise to it all that they are just being fooled by Maada Bio and his clique of deceivers. At times, people allow deceivers to flourish as they are very gullible. And Bio has really deceived his people. It should not continue to be so.
It is time for Maada Bio to begin planning his concession speech. He has been clearly defeated. If he does not listen, the route he will take will lead to a dead end and probably to the doorsteps of the ICC.
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