SLPP And The Arrogance Of Political Power
By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
With solid foundations in Metaphysics, Political Science, Philosophy, History, Sociology, and Comparative Religions; the writings of Oswald Hanciles, aka The Guru, are at times so impenetrable that readers have to always slash their way, with a scholastic sickle, through
the labyrinths of the intellectual jungles he normally creates in his, sometimes insightful and inciteful, “Oswald Hanciles Column”.
But I always have no problems in slashing my way through those intellectual jungles, as I can humbly boast that I’m the only editor in Sierra Leone who publishes that Column edited in my newspaper! And, also, I have been the only Sierra Leonean journalist who eagle-eyes some of his articles of which he always accepts and appreciates my eagle-eye-ness with boisterous laughter whenever we chat on the phone about them.
But editing the Oswald Hanciles Column once in a blue moon, writing about his Youth Arise organisation which arose self-worth and consciousness in the youth of old, touching on his unrelenting devotion to yoga practice to keep his mind alertly alert, and even reminiscing on our “Freetong Soja Tong” and Sherbro Island connective connections are not the thrusts of today’s One Dropian dropping. The thrusts are snippets from the Oswald Hanciles Column he wrote on 2 August 2024 at 18: 53 hours in Freetown.
Titled “Bio’s Successor: Lessons for the SLPP”, Oswald Hanciles notes that, “The SLPP was a victim of its own arrogance [in 2007] fueled by the 72% victory incumbent President Tejan Kabbah had won in the 2002 presidential election. It was a similar arrogance of SLPP leader and Prime Minister Sir Albert Margai in 1967 that got popular SLPP candidates – Briwa, Kaisamba, and Anthony in Kenema and Moyamba districts – to stand as Independent candidates, winning parliamentary seats in traditional SLPP strongholds…and the SLPP losing power…. ”
The same arrogance which led to Sir Albert Margai and Solomon Berewa losing political power to the All People’s Congress (APC), despite the power of incumbency, the uncouth and unashamed state capture, and the doling out of state resources as if they were Christmas candies, is now being exhibited by some government ministers and heads of Government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in the Bio-led administration. The disrespectful manner in which they shrug-off, or write-off, dissenting voices, coupled with the blatant violations of the “Freedoms” enshrined in the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone, are some of the issues that are nauseously nauseous about the current SLPP government.
Added to that, we are witnessing how the current SLPP government is using the Cyber Security and Crime Act 2021 to silence the handful dissenting voices in the media, the Sierra Leone Bar Association, members of opposition parties, and even ordinary citizens who express their opinions on issues that are not only affecting them and their families but the general citizenry. As recent as recently, Sierra Leoneans watched with horrific horror when a lady was harassed and threatened, right in the presence of President Julius Maada Bio, for merely trying to give that charade called Presidential Town Hall meeting the true meaning of a Town Hall meeting! At that gathering of SLPP faithful (Well, it appeared to have turned out to be such with SLPP “vigilantes” prowling the hall like Kush-nized zombies.), we saw the arrogant display of political power at its rawness!
And it is that same arrogant display of political power that prompted the former Minister of Transport and Aviation now the Board Chairman of the National Revenue Authority (NRA), Kabineh Kallon, to destroy ballot boxes during the rerun of a parliamentary by-election in Constituency 110 in Freetown. It is that same arrogant display of political power that encouraged an SLPP operative, Austin Johnny, to advocate for the mass killings of prominent APC members countrywide. It is that same arrogant display of political power that spurred the SLPP chairman, Dr Prince Harding, to refer to APC members as “mad men” in the presence of President Bio. And it is that same arrogant display of political power that motivated one of President Bio’s acolytes, Kadiru Kaikai, to threaten to wage a disastrous war in Sierra Leone if he is not elected the SLPP flagbearer in 2028!
And in all of those treasonable or felonious actions or utterances, the SLPP stalwarts involved went scot-free simply because they appear to be echoing the hidden agenda of their party despite it now seems to be a standard practice for the SLPP National Secretary General, Umaru Napoleon Koroma, to be issuing meaningless press statements to disassociate their party from those treasonable or felonious actions or utterances! The point is: what has been said cannot be unsaid. In this age of technology, some citizens might have archived or made mental notes of those treasonable or felonious actions or utterances for future actions!
Apart from the arrogant display of political power, corruption has always been given an SLPP-ian face each time the SLPP is in power. Despite the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) appears to be cooking-up data to make it look as if the Bio-led administration is seriously serious about the fight against corruption; there are countless instances of what seem to be rapid rags-to-riches within SLPP-dom in the last six years. And the ACC has given the issue of “Unexplained Wealth” an SLPP-ian interpretation as illustrated by the final reports on the investigations of the current Clerk of Parliament Umaru Paran Tarawallie and the former Chief Immigration Officer Andrew Jaiah Kaikai (One of the few lucky souls in the world to be allegedly gifted a G-Wagon Mercedes Benz, a Toyota Land Cruiser, and Toyota Forerunner by a friend who seems to be very friendly in his friendliness!).
From Albert Margai to Tejan Kabbah to Maada Bio, every SLPP government has been corruption personified. This fact is not lost on Oswald Hanciles who, in his article under review, notes that, “In 1967, it was allegations of corruption against Sir Albert Margai that whip[ped] up emotions against him in Freetown in 1966, preparing the ground for the SLPP to lose every constituency in Freetown in the 1967 parliamentary election….[And that] the crescendo of public outcry of corruption in the second term of President Tejan Kabbah…was a factor in Tejan Kabbah’s 72% victory to plummet to Solomon Berewa’s 38% in the first round of the 2007 presidential election…[which he eventual lost to Ernest Bai Koroma].” And I will add a postscript that the Alpha Timbo “Chinese rice” saga; the Professor David Francis US$1.5 million bank transfer allegation; the allegation by Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL) that the Office of the President presented fake receipts for auditing purposes, and the corruption investigations of the current Clerk of Parliament and the former Chief Immigration Officer are just a handful from the bagful of examples that an SLPP government and allegations of corrupt practices are Siamese twins!
But as Chinua Achebe notes in his novel, Arrow of God, “the death that will kill a man begins as an appetite”; so are the insatiable appetites of the ruling elite for the arrogant display of political power and corrupt practices. And it will be these appetites that will be the death knells for the SLPP in 2028!
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