By. Yankuba Kai Samba:
President Bio might well consider a power sharing deal with the APC because never in Sierra Leone chequered political history has a democratically elected president conveyed a conference on national reconciliation in peace time.
The fact that the president has chosen to hold a Bintumani conference indicate there is something wrong with the way his administration has handled state affairs.
Fundamentally, the president is indecisive, which to me, such indecisiveness seems lacking in conviction.
He had the opportunity and indeed the electoral mandate to make a paradigm shift in the way we deal with corruption, but has failed to do what the nation desired in routing out corruption.
Instead of setting up a commission of enquire, he could’ve acted swiftly and decisively to incarcerate all former state officials accused of misused of public funds, while a quick criminal prosecution was instituted against them.
What is concerning is that , while the Bio administration continues to blame former president Koroma and his officials for theft and corruption, we have not seen criminal prosecution of former president koroma and his officials in our court of law.
Other countries have charged their former leaders to court. Jacob Zuma is languishing in South Africa’s court room. Bashir of Sudan is in prison and charged with money laundering and killing of a protester. Algeria has arrested the powerful brother of former president Buteflicker , who was forced out of office,including several other oligarchs accused of corruption. To ensure they didn’t escape from justice , the Algerian authorities banned all private jets from flying and alerted border security. One oligarchs was captured trying to cross over to Tunisia with tens of millions of dollars. They have been charged with financial crimes as they remain in custody.
Added to this concern is the accusation levelled by the APC of a selective justice and a witch hunt . This should not be the case if the government policy in fighting corruption was much clearer than it is for now.
Furthermore, the first seed of conflict was the election of both the speaker and his deputy. The speaker presides over parliamentary procedure and is also the third powerful state office after the president and his vice president.
All three positions are held by the ruling SLPP party. However, both the speaker and deputy speaker are held by the party with the minority MPs. Nowhere in the world has a party with minority MPs grabbed both the speaker and deputy speaker positions. This anomaly has allowed the APC to cry foul .
Immediately after the 2018 general election, there were disturbing violence and attacks on people and their properties across the country. This , provided a good opportunity for the then newly elected president Bio to have asserted his leadership in a centrist mode. I suggested at the time that the president should set up an immediate public and independent enquire to establish why the violence occurred , who were behind it and offer compensation to those who lost their properties and livelihoods due to the targeted violence and criminal vandalism.
Had he done that, president Bio could have projected himself as a discipline, no nonsense leader in standing up against political violence and political tribal violence, because as a party that preaches new direction, we don’t want anymore political violence against a set of community in Sierra Leone because of their political affiliations and tribes.
We all know that the APC has a notorious history of political violence and thuggery but times have past and Sierra Leoneans are interested in a leadership to unite our fractured country.
Our ways will change when we change our hearts and minds. The politics of revenge or tit for tat politics, or fire for fire politics between both old parties of SLPP and APC that have interchanged governance is, unquestionably, the gravest of all threats to Sierra Leone as a country and people.
The proposed Bintumani conference is to many political observers, DOA, dead on arrival ,as it is fraught with dilemmas for the SLPP.
How do you get the cooperation of your adversary without giving him what he wants and without righting what he sees as wrong, and if by caving in , you would have disadvantaged yourself and lost what has been a propaganda battle. ?
At the moment, president Bio is a lame duck president unable to govern without the cooperation of the APC, hence the Bintumani 3.
Sam Jay Yankuba Kai-samba . I salute you big brother. You have said it all. I always says it, the Biocratic paopa administration is a failed project from the on set. Bio has some bad blood within his government that do not want to see him succeed as president and he is all for it. The guy has no vision to unite the country and govern her in perfect peace, in order for him to succeed in a peaceful coexisting environment and in returns his developmental projects to flourish.
