SIERRA LEONE AND THE “PAOPA” BULLIES.
How the President and First Lady bullied a nation_ .
By Tony Konomanyi
At the onset of the 2018 General Elections campaign, I cautioned against endorsing and/or voting for a party which had adopted an unsettling slogan, “PAOPA” (translation: By force.)
Soon after I’d written that article, the lone “PAOPA” was dropped for “PAOPA Salone for betteh”.(trans. “Sierra Leone MUST progress”.)
It was a clever recovery, I must say, but it was one which I saw through.
Because, words cannot hide or disguise ill intent.
Immediately after their General Elections win, SLPP aka PAOPA set in motion a chaotic set of actions that would set the tone for the rest of their time in governance.
Civil servants, senior police officers and many others were summarily dismissed or suspended from their jobs, and the reasons given in most cases were that Paopa party louts had accused them of having been pro APC before the Elections.
Members of the opposition were beaten up, and some were raped.
My personal assistant ventured into town one evening just after the Elections, to get us a takeaway.
He was set upon by SLPP thugs, badly beaten, and was being dragged to the SLPP party office in Kono, when several brave young men rushed to his rescue and wrestled him to safety.
We were to later learn that their intention was to mutilate his genitals.
These false allegations, sackings, rapes, beatings, intimidations, and threats were how SLPP PAOPA set the agenda to ensure that they would pilfer and loot with impunity.
The office of the First Lady became a powerful tool, used by the President to witchhunt perceived enemies within his own party.
Senior Ministers paid weekly pilgrimages to the First Lady, in order to curry favour.
Ministers and government officials would name their newborn baby girls after her, in a cynical ploy to be favoured.
My sources have long informed me of disquiet in the upper echelons of the Paopa government, over the massive influence she appears to reign on government hire and fire policy.
It is a general view within Paopa that the First Lady has become destructive, and is being harmful to the party.
The problem has been identified, the trouble is, who would bell the cat?
When studying a group or an organisation, a classic tell-tale sign, or an indication of cultism, or intimidation within the organisation is what’s called “parroting and mirroring’ ; mimicking.
Keen to please a bully leader, members of the organisation would often mimick the leader’s words and actions.
Upon observing our First Lady’s recent ‘dance videos’ , all those around her could be seen mirroring her dance steps.
And on her social media accounts when she adopts a new slogan, as in “we move”, she’s widely parroted, and it’s repeated all over by her minions, or victims.
And this intimidation of Paopa party and government officials is what set the pattern that has resulted in the alleged unrestrained looting of our national coffers by the First Lady and her husband, The President of our republic.
Because the government officials, whose jobs are to ensure that the checks and balances which are put in place to prevent embezzlement, have been kicked into line by intimidation, threats and bullying.
As I’ve written before, there’s immense disquiet in Paopa, over what many view as an overbearing First Lady, but many are too scared to openly voice any criticism.
Such is the state of our nation that, the decisions of government are now the prerogative of not the elected President, but of his wife, our very own Grace Mugabe, or Imelda Marcus.
©Tony Konomanyi
©Analytics
1Tony Konomanyi
