By Amadu Kabbah :
Whether it is rough times or smooth times for whomever, I read the Awareness Time report with satisfaction that the rat that is waiting to die is shaking its tail for all to see that he is a force to reckon with. This kind of propaganda is sad and unfortunate. It is scaring to see the southerners look at Sierra Leone differently. This kind of propaganda is unfortunate and unacceptable. It is packed full with what the writer thinks is happening when it is not. Let us graduate form our schools to lead our people straight; but if we don’t, then why the education we claim?
When people talk about APC destroying the country, I am offended. The letters A.P.C are mere letters and could not have destroyed the country if people like JB Dauda and others did not become part of thieves. But that was then. They were in fact the thieves themselves. Today they are with the SLPP and allowing people like you to talk about APC destroying the country. The APC today has new names and new people altogether. Tell me, if the SLPP of the Margais is not better than the Berewa-Kabbah SLPP. The only fine identity they share is the letters, SLPP.
This SLPP brought the country to it knees and today we turn around shamelessly and begin to talk regional politics. If you see the North behaving the way they do in the just concluded elections, they learnt it from you guys from the south, who have always thought that the south is Sierra Leone. APC of Momoh was thrown out of power by people we thought had good intentions for Sierra Leone; behold they had other plans, as John Benjamin and others advised Maada to overthrown Strasser.
Bio took power like a school boy who had nothing to do but to listen to instructions from his teachers- Kabbah and others. He took us to elections for what seemed like good for the country (BROVO!).
Today, in a very welcomed democratic election, the SLPP has taken another approach to bring suffering to the nation. What I see this party doing is like a desperate fool who sees good but interprets it differently, and says he can only allow progress when he is in control. But this is simple, go to the poll, and allow the people to decide. It is unfair to stop people from exercising their rights. There are no talks about APC stopping SLPP from campaigning in the north. We are aware of all these. I hate to say that my people in the south are not doing any good to themselves. SLPP lived with the APC we cry down today for destroying the country. We gave them our rights to rule since 1996. They failed almost immediately after they took power and they were overthrown. We stood with them to see AFRC out; they executed 24 soldiers for which the nation divided with majority approving the executions. We stood with them in everything since that time.
In 2002, we gave them another chance to go improve themselves. They did what they did to the greater majority of the people. I remember one of their ladies telling me that it was now time for them to enjoy; and indeed they enjoyed their best. Now it is the day of reckoning and they want to stop the people from paying them what they deserve. This is wrong and unacceptable. The SLPP has satisfactorily done what they said they came to do for ten years. If we are not being selfish, we should allow the campaigns to be free and fair instead of allowing some candidates in some areas and refusing others in same. After all, the Presidential candidates are laying their lives for the country.
Having gone through all that which we have gone through, we should be thinking as one nation and not the way you people from the south are thinking. It is sad. I am sorry for the finger pointing. How does one feel when you hear about a Presidential candidate being chased with gun shots when he goes to campaign in a region in the country he wants to rule? Allow them to talk to the people they are preparing themselves to rule. The people need to hear them talk their programs. That’s what they will use to judge them in 2012. They will in the process acquaint themselves with the people and their problems. But I know the right thinking people from that region are not echoing this music that APC-PMDC shouldn’t go to Kenema, Kailahun, Bo, Pujehun, Bonthe, Moyamba, bla, bla, bla…. It is outrightly sad and unfortunate. I feel it very painful to think they way our brothers are thinking. That is why the governments fail because the people in the regions make them believe that the other regions cannot be improved because they did not vote for them. SLPP promised to rehabilitate Kono, but could not do it when they took power in 1996 and in 2002. What if the people from that land decide to pay back for the disappointed? The Kono region came out for Berewa and not their in-law because they are thinking like a people who favor development. Or is it because they are fools?
God has spoken to this nation that we should replace the SLPP so that we will not continue to degenerate but we are being stubborn and would not allow His will to be done. Anybody who loves Sierra Leone should allow this change, the democratic change to happen so that we can live as a nation ready to join the community of civilized and developed nations. We should not allow our personal gains to shade our national views. Our brothers should stop this kind of things they are doing.
By the kind of things that are going on in the country, I have been believing that our people will allow this change so that SLPP can use it as another time to learn- during which time they would be in the opposition. They failed to learn when they were in governance, because the Vice President was busy buying houses in the US; his running-mate supporting his wife in Maryland; John Karimu taking a whole family to the US for vacation while the poor people went without pure drinking water and electricity to say the least. They failed because the President was busy selling the rice meant for his people and threatening them with State of Emergency. They failed because they were busy doing shady deals with Mining Companies and had no time for the people. So the people are prepared to pay them for the job well done. Allow them to take their programs to the people, not senseless propaganda.
There are a lot of odd things about this party- so much to write volumes that the forum cannot be appropriate to do so. Telling the voters in the south to do what is undemocratic in the name of stupid propaganda, can lead this small country nowhere. I thought some of us were grown-ups that we will see something good and recognize it and shy away from politics of underdevelopment. The events spoke for themselves over the years, and so God heard our cries that we want a change for the better. Five years is short, and Ernest has seen what to do. He will do it or else the people will replace him. That is how it is supposed to happen–we change them when they fail. SLPP has failed even the Founding Fathers so we will change them. God will hear our prayer and no matter what they may do, they will go to the opposition and Berewa will retire to one of his houses in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Hear this and advice yourself that you will vote for APC, not because it is APC, but because it is the only alternative and a better one that will lead us total happiness.
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