A high-powered delegation of the United States Congress is in Sierra Leone to meet with President Maada Bio, the opposition and civil society with regards to the political climate in the country. The delegation is led by the Chairman of the U.S. Congress Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hon. Gregory Meeks.
Though a Sierra Leone Embassy , Washington DC statement said that the visit is a response to an invitation extended to Hon. Meeks by President Bio during his visit to DC last September, it is definitely another typical SLPP spinning of stories and propaganda as the delegation is very large and it will be meeting with government officials, members of the country’s opposition parties and civil society organizations.
President Bio may have extended an invitation to Hon. Meeks but U.S. lawman would not have responded to such an invitation in this way, by bringing along with him what the very Embassy statement described as the largest U.S. Congressional delegation and secondly, if Hon. Meeks was honoring President Bio’s invitation, it would have been out of place for him to bring a large delegation that would meet with members of the opposition parties and civil society organizations .
According to reports received by COCORIOKO, the trip of the high-powered U.S. Congressional delegation is a fact-finding mission to get first hand information from the ground from key players in the present Sierra Leone political dispensation about complaints that have poured in to the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Congress about misgovernance, human rights abuses and violations of the constitution and the rule of law under the President Bio government.
The visit of the Congressional delegation is in line with U.S. foreign policy , eloquently enunciated by U.S. President George Bush jr, Barrak Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden that respect for good governance, human rights, economic probity and the rule of law are preconditions for the continuation of U.S. economic and technical assistance to African countries.
It is now left with the opposition and civil society to rise up to the occasion and give the congressional delegation a thorough run-down of what has transpired in Sierra Leone since President Bio came to power in 2018. This is a golden opportunity for the U.S to hear their own side of the story as the SLPP Government has been very effective in projecting itself to the international community as a good government making impressive strides in governance, human rights, education and respect for the constitution, which to the Sierra Leonean people is blatant propaganda and misstatement of reality.
Political experts told COCORIOKO that the U.S. Congressional delegation’s visit has come at the right time when presidential , parliamentary and local council elections are around the corner. The opposition All People’s Congress ( APC ) should leave no stone unturned to give the delegation a comprehensive report about how they are being hindered from holding their delegates convention to elect a flagbearer for the 2023 elections and also conduct party affairs through protracted government-covertly-engineered court cases that keep being adjourned and unduly extended, by the same judge handling the cases, Justice Adrian Fisher.
We will bring you more reports on the visit of the U.S. delegation.
