When The ‘Tormentor’ Becomes The Tormented

By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop) :

From the day the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) presidential candidate, Julius Madder Bio, accepted the epithet of being the “Tormentor” that was the very day he was destined to fail in his presidential bid. As a Christian, he should have looked up the biblical connotation of the “Tormentor” in the holy bible. But as the Shakespearean mantra goes, “pride cometh before a fall”, so the Tormentor Madder Bio was until now when he has become the tormented.

No doubt, Madder Bio is at present a tormented man. He is so tormented that he is now behaving like the onomatopoeic sound of his name: Madder! For if it is not madness, how can a sane man rants and rants and rants about elections results that were not yet announced by the sole person, Dr Christian Thorpe, whose job is it to announce them?

But that was not the reason why I was, and still I’m, convinced that Madder Bio is really a tormented man. During the run up to the elections, the SLPP presidential candidate in trying to counter the “World Best” adjective of President Ernest Bai Koroma engaged in brandishing the Red Card at his rallies. That act in itself showed the working of a tormented mind simply because it is unheard of in football matches for a player to give his opponent the Red Card when the match is in progress. Added to that, the tormented Madder Bio encouraged his supporters to show his opponent the Red Card also. When have spectators started giving the Red Card in football matches? It’s just tormented madness!

And when the metaphor of the Red Card did not resonate with Sierra Leone football-crazy youths, the tormented Madder Bio tried another trick: the dishing out of books and pens to school pupils. But this, also, didn’t reverberate with voters because the manner in which the learning materials (the ‘foofoo-book’ and substandard Bic pens) were flung at the pupils was like throwing remnants undo dogs! If Madder Bio really believes in education he should have given out scholarships long before now. Because President Ernest Bai Koroma believes in education, when he was Managing Director at the Reliance Insurance Trust Corporation (RITCORP) he was giving out scholarships to young Sierra Leoneans in primary and secondary schools, and students in colleges and universities not when he was aspiring for the presidency in 2002.

What actually is now tormenting the “Tormentor” is the fact that, despite his large rented crowds at the National Stadium during his party’s last rally, the people of Freetown overwhelming rejected him. The people of, and in, the capital are decent and sane enough to the extent that they have said they want nothing to do with someone who has accepted collective responsibility for the extra-judicial killings of 29 innocent people. The results are showing that the people of Freetown want nothing to do with a passport thief—Solomon Ekuma Berewa says he has the evidence!

Now everything has boomeranged at the tormented Madder Bio. I heard that he doesn’t only now talks in his sleep but sleepwalks as well. My inside SLPP sources tell me that Madder Bio now frequently falls into deliriums, and that each time he is delirious he will shout: “Had I known, Bambay Kamara, Yayah Kanu, Salami Coker and others would not have been killed. Had I known, I would have had nothing to do with those passport monies.”

What Madder Bio, the tormented, is now left with is the Hobson’s choice: he should accept the results and congratulate President Koroma. After that, he should go back to Ghana and continues with his secondhand car selling business. But if he decides to take to the bush or incites his supporters to violence, the law is clear on how to take care of rebels—especially someone who has the reputation of being a serial coupist!

medsankoh@yahoo.com/+232-76-611986