By SOLOMON SESAY of the New Daily Nation :

There’s nothing as ridiculous as adult politicians acting like crybabies and spoiled brats. Babies cry when they are in distress. Their anguish is usually caused by a soiled diaper, hunger, thirst, uncomfortable positioning, loneliness, etc. Conscientious adults know that unless they identify and resolve the source of the distress, the howling will continue.  Nonetheless, some babies are permanent whiners. They sob for no good reason and will continue humming just to get unhelpful attention. Parents and caregivers sometimes find it difficult to tell the difference between real and false whining. Therefore, several mechanisms are available to help keep the baby quiet. Although damaging to the child’s maturity, some adults will immediately put a pacifier in the mouth of a whimpering baby in order to hush them.

SOLOMON SESAY

For those who may want to know what a pacifier is, it is an ‘artificial nipple’. It is a rubber ring or nipple like structure that helps to calm teething babies. Apart from this precise purpose, pacifiers (artificial nipples) are often and again used to appease babies for various reasons. When they bite or suck on it often than not, they become relax and tranquil. Nevertheless, pacifier cannot take care of the entire needs of the baby. There comes the time when the baby must withdraw from using it. The constant use of pacifiers is psychologically unhealthy for the child.  It can lead to that child acting (in later years) like spoiled brats that whines for any whimsical reason.

In the legislative dispensation of the Republic of Sierra Leone, the Sierra Leone People’s Party have over and again display the characteristics of political immaturity. They have repeatedly put on show the distinctive penchant of political crybabies, spoiled brats, and happy-go-lucky whiners. The incessant use of boycotts seems to be their soothing mechanism. This has a pacifying effect on them as they repetitively fail to tackle the real issues for their party’s bellyaches. Over the past four years, the reasons for which the SLPP staged a boycott are numerous. At crucial stages when party views should give way to our national interest, they RELAX by using the boycott contrives. They have failed to meaningfully engage the ruling party in parliamentary debates and proceedings. Their profundity with boycotts has disallowed them the patriotic prospects of dealing with Sierra Leone’s legislative issues head-on. After so long, it is safe to conclude that boycott is the only studied recourse they know how to use, just as some parents go back to their old ways of giving their babies pacifier for capricious reasons.  Let’s call a spade what it is; the Sierra Leone People’s Party are displaying political irresponsibility and childishness.

SLPP MPs are idlers. They are failing their constituencies by their recurring absence in parliament. This is a letdown not to the ruling All People’s Congress, but to the people of Sierra Leone. Sierra Leoneans expect their MPs to prolifically take on each other without finding insubstantial excuse to withhold participation. Sierra Leoneans want to hear about the hearty debates in parliament and not flimsy reasons justifying the nonattendance of opposition members. Perhaps the SLPP have not thought past their immediate needs. What they are obliquely forcing Sierra Leone toward is a new form of a one party state-unopposed APC rule by default of the SLPP opposition.
Being a lazy opposition with obstructionist tendencies coupled with an unpatriotic sense of duty, will eventually lead to a lopsided representation in favor of the party in power. Why should the electorate allow the SLPP to resurface as the ruling party when their MPs were nowhere to be found during the times the nation was in need of their presentation and to execute their legislative duties? What should stop the voters from removing those MPs who are being paid with Taxpayers’ money for doing nothing and failing to perform their legislative functions?

Leading to 2012, the Sierra Leone People’s Party has all the markings of a frivolous party. They rather dance in the streets with supporters, than engage Sierra Leoneans in meaningful and productive discussions. This is not the time for carnivals and dancing. Now is the time to THINK SIERRA LEONE. This is the time to THINK PEACE. This is the moment to present within the walls of parliament and the nation, the WAY FORWARD for Sierra Leone. This is the appropriate time for the SLPP to name their pain and wean themselves off the boycott pacifier.
It solves nothing because the underpinning dysfunctions and sufferings of the nation’s oldest political party-SLPP have nothing to do with the Presidency of Ernest Bai Koroma and the ruling All People Congress. It has everything to do with political immaturity, babyish redundancy, dogmatic malfunctions, obstructionist conduct, clumsy actions, with fake pomposity within the ranks of their SLPP. They squandered their time for political reform and renewal. Instead, they want to point fingers at the marvelous accomplishments of President Koroma led GoSL through whining and whimpering.

Will the SLPP MPs act like grownups and wean themselves off the boycott pacifier? Will Sierra Leone’s opposition party please act like matured adults and engage the ruling party in peaceful and meaningful ways? While they have boycotted important proceedings in parliament and major nation-building events, the responsible GoSL did not prohibit developments in the SLPP’s southeastern stronghold. Progress all over Sierra Leone is happening without them.  It must continue this way until they figure out healthier ways of engaging Sierra Leoneans in the political process.

Until that time, Sierra Leoneans who mean well for the nation must voice their displeasures of the constant SLPP boycotts. Call the MPs and demand he/she must be in Parliament at all times or you will cast a vote of no confidence against him/her in 2012. You display maturity and remove their boycott pacifier from them by indicating you will shun all their political activities until they represent you by the book in Parliament. Hold them responsible for their irresponsible actions. Call them out for putting roadblocks in the way of Sierra Leone’s democratic development. Moreover, let them know you plan to reward President Koroma and the APC for staying focus and acting like qualified patriots with a landslide victory in 2012.