By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop) (05/08/2022)
It would have been surprisingly surprising if members of the All People’s Congress (APC) are surprised that Alpha Kanu, the Resident Minister for North-West now Presidential Spokesman, would miss any opportunity to show the world that the only consistent trait in his trait is his inconsistency. He has switched political loyalties from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP-Sorbeh) to the APC and now the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). He will be the chameleonic person he always is. But what is interestingly interesting is the manner in which President Julius Maada Bio seems to have mastered Robert Greene’s “48 Laws of Power”.
By appointing Alpha Kanu, one of his former antagonists, his Spokesman; the Commander-in-Chief is indicating that he has finally decided to put into practice Greene’s second Law of Power. This Law states that: “Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use [former] enemies.” By transforming Mr Kanu into an acolyte whose seeming buffoonery is now legendary to the embarrassment of even certified buffoons, President Bio is showing Sierra Leoneans that the principles which most Sierra Leonean politicians have are very much Machiavellian.
By jostling Yusuf Keketoma Sandi and hiring Alpha Kanu; President Bio is experimenting with whether it is true or not that if one hires a former foe he will be more loyal than a friend because he will have more to prove. But I’m not so sure about Alpha Kanu whose loyalty is not even to his God, or his spouse and siblings, but himself! He will always follow raw political power even if it leads him to his doom. And I will bet my only 11-year-old Toyota Camry that if the APC returns to State House in 2023, Alpha Kanu will clownishly clown his way back to that party just as how Robin Fallay has done with the SLPP! And I will second-guess what he would say. He would say that he had joined the SLPP to study its modus operandi so that he would be able to sabotage them from within to bring back the APC to power.
He has always been shameless like the Orwellian Squealer. But unlike Squealer, who is unapologetically loyal to Napoleon, Alpha Kanu is only loyal to the trappings of political power. At times, the shamefulness of Alpha Kanu’s shamelessness reminds me of Sir Winston Churchill who, throughout his political career, switched his loyalty between the Liberal and Conservative parties to the chagrin of Lady Astor who, when she and he met at a social function, remarked: “Sir Winston if you were my husband, I’d poison your coffee”. And just as how shameless Alpha Kanu now is, Churchill had retorted: “Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it”. But I don’t think anyone has the intention of giving hemlock to Alpha Kanu because of his lack of political principles and ungratefulness; except that his new appointment as Presidential Spokesman will turn out to be a poisoned chalice!
Alpha Kanu does not only tell lies and believes in them, but also sticks to those lies as if believing in them will make them truths. To him, lying is as natural as breathing air. He has built an unpleasant reputation for himself that even when he genuinely smiles, people will always take those smiles as fakes. Such is his battered character that even if he says “let us pray”; thousands of Sierra Leoneans will be afraid to close their eyes because they know he is not a trusted person. No right-thinking person will ever appoint a starved monkey as foreman of a banana plantation. But President Bio has done the unthinkable which might serve as a mirror of his own character. It is Niccolo Machiavelli who notes, in his seminal book: The Prince, that “The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”
If the messenger is discreditably tainted; how then could the message be accepted by right-thinking audiences? By appointing Alpha Kanu his Presidential Spokesman; the Head of State is inferring that we should take him by the person who is voicing his thoughts! In hindsight, Alpha Kanu’s appointment is the final reward for his role as a Fifth Columnist in the APC prior to the 2018 elections. Although it was not clear to me at first; now it is obvious that President Bio has been cleverly preparing him in doses for this climax. Now I’m beginning to also understand why the SLPP-created Commission of Inquiry (COI) went soft on him despite he was one of the kingpins in the APC; why he was appointed at the National Corona Virus Emergency Response Centre (NaCOVERC), and why he was later appointed Resident Minister North-West. All along, Alpha Kanu has been looking like an innocent flower but he was actually the serpent under it (to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth in “Macbeth”).
And the surprising thing about Alpha Kanu’s appointment is that no sane Sierra Leonean is surprised at all. He has always been a mouth for hire! I’m wondering which sound-bites he would now create to suite his newfound role as the President’s Squealer. He can’t refer to the Commander-in-Chief as “World’s Best” because President Bio cannot even pass for Kroo Bay’s Best Player. He cannot call himself “The Apprentice” because traditional SLPPers, or supporters of Vice President Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, will barbecue him for dinner. He cannot badmouth former President Ernest Bai Koroma, anymore, because such badmouthing would make him look like Nikita Khrushchev badmouthing Josef Stalin.
Despite he may be carrying an air of self-importance; Alpha Kanu is now the proverbial emperor without ceremonial garbs. And Alpha Kanu will always look like a bull in a china shop whenever he is among, or around, hardcore SLPP supporters. He will always exude an air of superfluity and Judas-ness (this is another One Dropian dropped word) in SLPP-dom. And he will always stick out like a sore thumb! Courtesy: By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop) [email protected]/+232-76-611-986
