President Bio must restructure – not re-destroy

Mahmud Tim Kargbo: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 7 September 2018:

As the Sierra Leonean contraption approaches its 58th anniversary of independence, the internal dynamics which has continually seen its various component factors – ethnic, regional and social, pitched in perpetual deterioration – one against the other, appears to be approaching a climax.

I have been repeatedly asked why I refer to my country as a ‘contraption’. The answer is trite. That is simply what Sierra Leone truthfully is – a contraption.

Referring to Sierra Leone as a ‘nation’ would tantamount to telling a lie, as the country is not. There is however nothing wrong in being a contraption. Many nations today started as contraptions, such as the former Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the United States of America (US) which started as a contraption of 13 British colonies.

The problem however, is what you do with your contraption.

With regards to the US, its founding fathers worked hard towards transforming their contraption into the behemoth success it is today, setting in motion policies and practices which sought to integrate the diverse people and cultures in their contraption into one homogeneous entity.

Transformation from contraption into nationhood is however a continuum, as can be gleaned from the racial-tensions which continue to blight the American dream.

Ours on the converse, has been most retrogressive. From a contraption which saw ourselves as divided along regional and tribal lines by very greedy politicians, lacking in what it takes to lead a nation.

Since ‘independence’, rulership under a primitive, thieving and self-destructive ‘elite’ class who, as a collective, seem to derive joy in inflicting hardship on their fellow citizens, has further widened the gulf between the various peoples of Sierra Leone.

Our rulers continue to manipulate people who had previously felt some form of amity, into blood enemies; brothers are turned against brothers.

The worrisome state of our contraption has engendered despondency among the populace. All manners of criminal political organisations, each laying a bogus claim to representing one segment of the contraption or the other, have sprung up to feast on the decay.

Moreover, as can be gleaned at from the modus operandi of these ‘very divisive pseudo-business political parties (SLPP & APC)’, the people such groups claim to represent will fare far worse under the dictatorship of the ethnic and regional rulers in the event of an all-out explosion of the contraption.

Resulting from inept rulership in all strata of previous and current governance, more easily noticeable at the State House because of the overconcentration of power and resources there, too much innocent blood has been, and continues to be shed directly or indirectly, to sustain our contraption.

Do we throw in the towel? Certainly not.

My persistent call for restructuring and renegotiation of the contraption is being cunningly re-crafted, reconstructed and presented to the populace, by an equally lethal and dangerous band of kleptocrats, posturing as ‘progressives’ and their cohorts – comprised mainly of sycophants, bootlickers and stooges, trained by the authoritarian Ernest Bai Koroma, as a call to merely replace the present crop of rulers at the national level.

Let me be explicitly clear in this instance: rather than falling into the trap being spawned by the band of opportunists led by and comprised of previous and current organised state rogues, who see nothing wrong in placing their entire families, sycophants and bootlickers in different political offices; ethnocentric extremists who are out of touch with our present realities and have no affinity across geo-political divides; and discredited criminal elements who after fleecing public coffers in the offices they were opportune to be appointed / elected into, now turn around and have the temerity to deem themselves as ‘tolongbos / paopa New Direction disciples.

If the nightmarish probability of falling into the trap of the same rogues, who are only different by party colours was to ever occur, it will tantamount to a re-destruction of our contraption.

My call has been for a restructuring and renegotiation of the contraption, and certainly not for its re-destruction.

Julius Maada Bio now simply has to buckle up.

Agreed, Maada came into office primarily on the basis of Ernest Bai Koroma not believing anyone within his own APC party to protect his and family looted wealth after his presidential term expired as reported by African Confidential.

Further agreed that entrenched interests who had fed fat from the blood and resources of Sierra Leoneans and Sierra Leone, continue to engage in lawless activities against the state by entering in to illegal government contracts.

Also agreed that these same ‘opposition’/’progressives’ via their ruler Ernest Bai Koroma have unleashed benumbing destruction on a scale unprecedented in the history of our modern-day democracy, against the polity to ensure public ill-will within the contraption by politicising all democratic institutions – an action Bio is sustaining in his government.

The reality remains that for now, someone occupies the office of President of the Republic, and that person should act accordingly, based on our laws.

In the interim, and certainly before any further pretence at national elections, Sierra Leoneans should be allowed the opportunity to discuss the framework for the continued existence of our contraption, with a view to ensuring peaceful coexistence of people.

Time is running out.