As the ruling party begins to rip up the scab of our past and force-feed us with its greased hog, there’s no putting lipstick on the provocative pig of bigotry and reckless political opportunism that fans the ember of ethical threats; not because it is right or wrong, but because it’s timing  fuels the narrative of politics of envy and intolerance.

Recent utterances and actions of the government and its party loyalists, reeks of the same mindset that has pervaded the politics of heritage protection, ethnic cleansing, weaponisation of the sword of Damocles and an agenda that involves code-switching through absolute impunity, while we are busy moaning about the political pain, we believe some of its potential reforms will unleash.

Whichever, the contemptuously laughable quest for a public good that has the potential of making mincemeat of the peace and unity of the down-trodden, and is no different from what the SLPP has been accusing the APC of doing, gives me goose pimples as it smells of some political dark arts and

reminds me of the above-titled comic swipe by playwright, Ola Rotimi, at ideological misfits and opportunists who strut the ever-accommodating political landscape of contemporary Africa.

As the long-suffering residents of Freetown are about to be dragged screaming and shouting into an age-old proxy, ethno-political and reactionary mayhem, by those enjoying a luxury lifestyle and flying the idiocy flag from their phony artificial-intelligence world, I am horribly wary of the obsessive vultures that have been circling around power in the capital and who are about to descend with ferocious impunity and hunger, even amidst the party’s broken promises and abject failure.

Indeed it does say everything about the state of our politics and the contempt for the citizens, already stoked to poverty, that the squawking  power-wielders are coming with guns blazing and ready to use the very people they pledged to improve their lot, as sacrificial pawns and cannon fodder of a divide and rule policy whose fall-out will only further stunt growth and bloodshed in the capital; judging by events since the administration of Maada Bio came to power over seven years ago.

Tamba Lamina’s and by extension the government’s and political apologists’ submission that the proposed plan to divide Freetown into two administrative areas, is a progressive commitment to ensuring that the interests of citizens, stay at the heart of our national development agenda, is nothing but a clear case reminiscent of morbid amnesia, and an assault as well as effrontery, on the intelligence of right-thinking Sierra Leoneans.

It is nothing but the amplification of a soundbite and a blatant tactic to implement the undertone and underlying historical ‘issue’ of bringing Freetown under the control of anyone else but the APC and the ‘Creoles’ as has been the bone of contention by opposing views. This load-of-nonsense broadside whose sleeping genie has been a sing-song for quite a while, not only makes the SLPP a more dangerous, subtle schemer, without class, deceitful, misleading and highly opinionated.

Let’s call a spade a spade. Let’s talk truth to ourselves. I am not particularly bothered by the fact that rather than defeat the blinding darkness of deceit with the potent lights of truth, those on the gravy train or the ethnically-warped, are going to now spin any opposition to this “vain” and predicted elephant-in-the-room that continues to haunt us, as the rambling of an affected indigene(s).

Good luck to them and their conscience. Propaganda doesn’t change the colour of truth.

We are where we are and have continued to fan the ember of our division because we choose to live in silos and in denials. Worse, shocking, and disappointing, is the fact that everyone is wasting energy and effort on siding with underlying partisan, and tribal politics, despite our history; and still hold fast to sentiments that have led us to fights, clashes and even an unnecessary war, or set us back and made us victims of the evil we fail(ed) to fight and condemn, especially if it does not soothe our latent disposition.

With our tacit connivance, we gradually endorse the incineration of our national integrity while developing a psychopathic negative-expectation of socio-political values and core principles that keep the door to hell ablaze and provide room for proxy unscrupulous Sierra Leoneans to thrash, utilise and provoke us at any time they so wish. Why can’t we have an alternative to our politics of pain?

How sad and hilarious then, is this phony enterprise of dividing Freetown into two administrative political zones, so that the ‘dot on the map’, which is the capital of the nation, can blitz in the panacea for the best of times and an avenue for a fairer share of the goodies and distortions on offer, by a leadership of soft pegs without deep reserves?

That desperation to rule all or part of the capital is what makes this so-called reform, one of the most stupid political moves. It is like a he-goat having a dip in the nearby puddle – it increases its smell not otherwise.

Let’s argue politics with honesty and integrity not propaganda and expediency. Because sadly, Sierra Leone’s healing will not begin until the politically entitled give way to men of integrity.

Political bastardisation is not necessarily a recipe for progress. This ‘coloured reform’ is another politics of destruction, unwarranted at this point in time, even if there is any need at all. This is 2025 and the politricks-masquerade of yesterday, has since been unveiled even if the voice of Jacob behind the tribal-political antagonistic announcement tries to keep a straight face.

If this is the ruling party’s priority in the midst of the numerous socio-political and economic challenges facing the entire Sierra Leone, for which it promised to provide succour, then it must be simply bereft of ideas and painfully an acute let-down. It is a drive in reverse gear into a medieval darkness at breakneck speed. It is simply the cry of a spoilt child, it is promoting and encouraging clan (whether creole or other tribes) over competence, socio-ethnic tantrums  above truth, and a disgusting attempt to install square pegs in round holes.

What a dark, unruly tragedy being incubated and which might leave the nation thrashing about like a snake without a head. For the avoidance of any doubt, history is noted for its long memory. And when the roll call is made, those who played games with our future will not be remembered as clever, but only as reckless men and women who traded a nation’s progress for the thrill of a political point. SLPP kettle which called APC pot, black, showing its true colours.

In that case, let the SLPP do everyone a favour and just manipulate or appropriate power for its perpetuation but at least please leave the masses who are crying out unheard to fend for their future while their supposed leaders continue with their pursuit of power. An African proverb says, “deity if you cannot help me just leave me as you met me rather than add to my problems”. There’s a cockiness to the deliberate and frenetic move coming just as the next election is approaching.

Our politics has a fatal flaw, which gives our leaders, the limitless self-belief that they are not only ‘gods’ but are obscenely powerful enough to impose their will on the rest of us mere mortals. They forget that unless the Lord builds a house, the labourers labour in vain. Where’s Siaka Steven’s strong-headed one-party state and what was the end result?

Ernest Koroma is now a fugitive in foreign lands because he failed to appreciate how leaders should not play politics of treachery wrapped in a party flag. Power is transient.

Mayor Aki-Sawyerr did not reject the SLPP in Freetown; the people did, and they did so, simply because unlike politicians, cocooned in their insular world while thinking that legacies are built by brute, crude political control, those bearing the Empty Boat Effect, reserved their talking for the ballot boxes. They might still do so, to prove that they are not mugs, no matter their situation.

The SLPP lost Freetown at the height of its so-called talk-and-do propaganda blitz and massive influx of money by its candidate. What gives it the impression that a decimated Freetown will still endorse its presence or any mortal they field, except there is something else in the offing. Lipstick on a pig makes no difference.

Trying to create a two-part fragmented capital, through muddled up half-truths and mendacity as the answer to its utter failure, will only fuel the ethnic dichotomy that will kill whatever the dreams, of the proponents of this humongous suspicious plan.

Only fools and horses will not see into and beyond the set of ridiculous proposals for political reforms that are gradually seeping out of the closet of the bakers of ‘progressive’ moves for national development, but who have failed to reach the expected dizzy heights promised seven years ago.

Lungi bridge that could have helped to decongest Freetown and opened up the city and nation languishes in the realm of conjecture till date, ( Don’t be surprised if an announcement is made about the project coming on board soon amidst some razzmatazz photo shoot that will remain in the album as the burden passes on to the next government).

Maybe if the same zeal, determination and purpose now being cooked up for the next mealtime, was apportioned to those bread-and-butter issues that touch the lives of majority of Sierra Leoneans, and those living in the capital, then the government would not have time for mundane things like political administration of a tiny part of the country which resoundingly rejected it because it did not prove it’s worth to their existence at the height of its romance with the people and social media dominance.

Tejan Kabbah came when everything made Freetown a basket case but never floated such a ridiculous idea at a time when such a political expediency that would have made more sense or justifiable. He concentrated on the work. He knew that improving the living standards of every Sierra Leonean was a task that must be done and yet he was SLPP.

Can the government tell us the expedient issues that has made this annoying reform so important to the lifting up of Sierra Leoneans in general as well as the obstacles it encountered on the way to executing its programme, aside the pathological hatred for the current Freetown mayor and the fact that a ‘non-indigene’ should and must occupy the position . Grabbing power is not the issue; decency matters as well.

I look far away into yonder skies of the rest of the country and all I can ask is amidst the mixed bag of economic growth and hardship, what happened to the pledge for a new direction. Where are the promised “sparkling springs” and the “babbling brooks” in other parts of the country that can serve as testimonies of what Freetown urgently needs or is desperately missing?

Are the current ‘egg-heads’ pushing the bullet-riddled political reforms, able to tell us how the division of the capital, even at this point in time, will reduce the burden of its lack of investment, change the parlous state and absence of critical infrastructure and essential services,  which it has failed to provide since its inception, through inclusive national policies.

Does a road know if it was commissioned by APC or SLPP before it carries traders to the market where the buyers don’t care which party puts cheaper food on the table or who provided more affordable transportation. Good policies and service delivery should be above petty rivalries and power gloves.

The SLPP as a party is lost in the maze of how to rule Freetown at all costs. Secondly, its refusal to work with the mayor since it came to power, if it was truly desirous of providing the capital with more vibrancy, is an indication of its sulking baby tantrum. The masses’ hunger for food and a better life, while our elite politicians with too much book-knowledge and zilch political and common sense, are starving and craving for more power.

What has the current administration really done to show the people of Freetown that it is worthy of their trusts. Seven years on, our nation’s chief image city, is still gasping for constant electricity. Is that the mayor’s fault?

Price pressure remains the public’s sharpest pain, but the last time I checked, the city council had no hand in the direction and credibility of national economic policy which those voices, mostly driven by parochial interest, are mounting the stage to sell and justify as palliatives for our heart-ache, with pure superlatives and deliberate dictions even when it shows that this medication that we all know, increases diarrhoea

It is only buffoons such as those who dreamt up the damned fool of an idea in the first place and at such a critical fragile political time using adjectives to qualify its head words, would fail to appreciate that even a stark illiterate (sorry I forgot that’s what those outside their niche think of the people), can smell from afar off, that the government and the ruling party, have something up their sleeves.

Sierra Leone’s major challenge today is that the people who lay claim to a determination to change the chronicles of our disastrous socio-political and economic narratives by presenting us with superfluous television and social media bouquets are unwittingly failing to appreciate that their beautiful phrases is seen  as deodorant on how badly our economy and development is doing.

Because of their lack of political astuteness they are failing to build an enduring legacy and focussing  on the offsprings of the same issues that past failures have entrenched through their willy waving lust,

As a matter of fact, resorting to politicking, skewed compass painted in multicolours and waving the flag of desperation which even the blind can see and feel; instead of rising to the occasion of a new direction for all and sundry makes even the best of governance and policies, wane significantly in integrity.

Till the next instalment of ‘Our husband has gone mad again’, can we start working in truth and in spirit towards putting an end to our politics of destruction and search for those with the moral leadership to endorse unity of purpose and progressive policies, even if the drive is being led by opposition members and sworn enemies, if truly, the best for Sierra Leone is indeed the blood flowing in their veins and not party logos and the pain of unseen hands.