The Africanist Press Is Unsettling The SLPP
By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Ever since “Watergate”, “WikiLeaks”, and the “Panama Papers”; there has never been a classic example of Investigative Journalism in recent times than the reports and analyses by the Africanist Press about the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP)’s lack of accountability and transparency in managing the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
The reports and analyses by the Africanist Press appear to be depictions of President Julius Maada Bio and his wife, Fatima, as spendthrifts. This has now given the impression that the Bio Family seems to be ruling Sierra Leone just like how the House of Saud is ruling Saudi Arabia.
The only difference is that while Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy in which Saudis are expected to timidly gulp hook, line, and sinker the lavish lifestyles of the royals; ours is a democratic Republic in which the government has to be accountable to and transparent with the governed.
And if any group of persons has succeeded in presenting the SLPP government as a group of charlatans; they are the writers of the Africanist Press. They have succeeded in removing the shroud off the SLPP’s so-called fight against corruption. While President Bio and his seemingly holier-than-thou walkers of the corridors of State House and State Lodge are giving the International Community the impression that they hate corruption with the hatred with which “men of God hate Satan”, to quote the Cameroonian writer Mongo Beti; reports and analyses by the Africanist Press indicate that the Bio-administration lacks the basic principles of transparency!
From the information and appraisals by the Africanist Press, majority of Sierra Leoneans are now alarmed by the financial recklessness with which the SLPP government is running the country. Many Sierra Leoneans are now appalled by the seemingly Just-for-the-First Family-only manner in which the country appears to be run. And what is more dumbfounding is the horrid fact, if I should make a conjuncture from the Africanist Press’ reports, that the SLPP government is running the country like starved children with sweet tooths who have suddenly chanced upon a forgotten cookie jar!
Sadly, the pre-2018 battle cry of President Bio, about “plugging the leakages” on the main pipe that connects the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Sierra Leone, and State House, can no longer be compared to the fabled fox who dismisses the grapes as sour just because they are beyond its reach. Now that President Bio and his folks have finally reached the grapes and tasted them; they now know that it will be a sign of bad taste, or uncouthness, to be still talking about “plugging the leakages” with mouthfuls of grapes!
Even my good friend the Minister of Information and Communications, Mohamed “Rado” Swaray, has been keeping mum on the reports and analyses by the Africanist Press. Perhaps, he too is now ashamed of his earlier indefatigable comment about his SLPP “inheriting the worst [or broken] economy in living memory”. At times, I’m in sympathy with Mr Swaray for being given one of the most difficult jobs of clearing other people’s faeces, metaphorically, on issues that are embarrassingly embarrassing for both his party and the country.
Now with the news and reviews by the Africanist Press having similar effects amongst majority of Sierra Leoneans like Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians, the SLPP’s “Paopagandists” and “drunkardnomists” are now frightened by their ramifications for the 2023 general elections. That’s why they are now screaming blue murder about the protection of “state secrets”. This screaming is being led by the online pro-SLPP Patriotic Vanguard which notes in its 17 January 2021 publication that, “Since the current SLPP government came to power…we have seen many serious breaches into or capture of highly confidential information bordering on national security…. No government can function effectively without control of its confidential information some of which includes transactions with foreign governments and agencies. We suggest the Interior Minister do an overhaul of all agencies whose work entails the protection of state secrets…”
The above is one of the several panic modes which the reports and analyses by the Africanist Press have put SLPP operatives into. It is laughable for the SLPP to be talking about “Official State Secrets” now that history has come full circle. When the All People’s Congress (APC) was at the rudder, SLPP propagandists including Mamba TV were gleefully publishing and broadcasting sensitive confidential information that were not only embarrassing to the then APC government but pillorying the entire Republic of Sierra Leone—making it to look like “a racketeering enterprise” (to borrow the Chief Minister, Professor David Francis’s phrase) being ran by elected criminals. Well, what goes around, says the clichéd adage, comes around. If you were not respecting yesterday’s king; don’t expect people to respect today’s either!
What is unique about the news and analyses by the Africanist Press is their precisions, accuracies, and exactness to the extent that the First Lady, Madam Fatima Bio, has to take to social media to engage in what the British print media would euphemistically call “non-denial denial”. At least, if the Minister of Information and Communications, Mohamed “Rado” Swaray, or the Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman, Yusif Keketoma Sandi, cannot be bold enough to acknowledge the Africanist Press’ investigative journalism; Madam Fatima Bio has done so. After all, he who dips his or her index finger in a bowl of palm oil will have to do the cleaning of that finger himself or herself!
And if the two Washington Post reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, were celebrated for doing extensive investigative journalism on the break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington and the subsequent cover-up by President Richard Nixon; if the German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), could be celebrated for the “Panama Papers, and if Julian Assange is still being celebrated for “WikiLeaks; then every Sierra Leonean who truly believes in accountability and transparency should celebrate the investigative journalism championed by the Africanist Press.
It is on that note that I will end today’s One Dropian dropping with an excerpt from the 20 January 2021 press release from the APC which notes that, “…the circulation of such articles in [sic] the Social Media and elsewhere directly and unequivocally accusing the President of our country and his Spouse, the First Lady, of withdrawing huge amounts of foreign currency from the Central Bank and Consolidated Revenue Fund does not only send a disturbing signal to our development partners, it also damages and dents the credibility of Sierra Leone as a destination for any type of foreign investment….”
medsankoh@yahoo.com/+232-76-611-986
