By KABS KANU :
The bloody internecine feuds breeding within the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party ( SLPP) are undermining the security of the state.
The brutal killing of an SLPP supporter by another supporter in Kenema last week which has horrified everybody in the country and the diaspora tore at the heartstrings of the whole nation because any attack on any citizen or foreign resident in the country is an aggravation and aggression against the security of the state. When chaos breaks out in the SLPP , it is the security of the state that will suffer. Innocent victims will also lose their lives and their hard-earned properties would be destroyed.
Though many people are blaming Maada Bio for the violence and bitterness tearing the SLPP asunder, it is a fact that Maada Bio is only a symptom and reflection of the problem of violence in the SLPP. His violent platform reflects the mindset and character of the SLPP as a violence-prone political party that will achieve nothing without resorting to brutality and bestiality. Even before Maada Bio was born, the SLPP had been violent and after Maada Bio, the SLPP will still be violent, until the party changes its concept , philosophy and practice of politics.
Maada Bio was yet a two-year old toddler still feeding on baby bottles in 1967 when the SLPP introduced thuggery and violence in the politics of our nation during the General Elections and then staged the first military coup ever in our country. Maada Bio was still a baby boy in 1968 and 1969 when violence by the SLPP throughout the nation forced the late President Siaka Stevens to declare a State of Emergency in the length and breadth of the country. Maada Bio was a schoolboy in 1982 when the SLPP introduced the first guerilla warfare in Sierra Leone–The Ndorgborwusui conflict in Pujehun. Maada Bio was a young military officer when the SLPP connived with the NPFL in Liberia, through human monsters called Allie Kabba and Foday Sankoh to start the rebel war in Sierra Leone in 1991 that killed over 50, 000 people , left a colony of amputees and our infrastructure in ruins. Maada Bio was not in the country in 1997 when the late President Kabbah of the SLPP brought mercenaries who resorted to a scorch-earth violent policy and mass murder and destruction in the country to restore the overthrown SLPP government, though the junta had consented to the Abidjan Peace Accord and agreed to surrender power .
Yes, Maada Bio is violent, took part in the 1992 SLPP- supported military coup against the All People’s Congress ( APC ) and has made violent threats and utterances and unleashed violent thugs at his own political party. But the problem of violence in the SLPP goes beyond Maada Bio. Most of the presidential aspirants in the SLPP , including Kandeh Yumkella ,who served the violent NPRC Junta , Allie Kabbah , the RUF rebel kingpin , and the very John Benjamin , whose supporter was killed by the Bio thug, have all at one time or the other made VEILED violent threats that are inimical to peace and security in the country.
The problem with the SLPP in general and SLPP party operatives in particular is that they are not committed to the ideals of democratic consolidation in Sierra Lone. They are bad losers , promote ethno-regional and clientelistic political dogma and prefer violent means of attaining victory , instead of peaceful and civilized methods.
We at COCORIOKO help call on the SLPP to heed the many appeals that have been made to them by Government, the Political Parties Registration Commission ( PPRC ), parliamentary leaders, some honest journalists and even their own operatives to denounce and renounce violence , to think more about the interest of the nation and the state and stop undermining the peace and security of the country .Let democracy and the rule of law prevail in Sierra Leone. The nation will find it difficult to countenance the SLPP if they bring another war to Sierra Leone.
