Sierra Leone Telegraph: 27 February 2022:
Following last week’s controversial decision by the minister of local government – Tamba Lamina to shut down the Freetown City Council’s Mayor’s Delivery Unit, based on recommendations of an investigations report into the management of the Council, the main opposition All People’s Congress Party (APC) has published a statement condemning what the party describes as “sustained campaign of harassment, threats and intimidation directed at the Mayor since her election to office by state institutiions and agents of the President Bio-led SLPP government”.
Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr who is currently enjoying the support of the majority of residents of the capital Freetown, as well as the international community in the country and outside, is yet to comment on the decision by the government to close the Mayor’s Delivery Unit, but the Sierra Leone Telegraph understands that lawyers acting for the Mayor may soon take legal action against the government.
This is what the statement by the APC says:
This statement is typical from the APC “playbook”. They have never respected recommendations from any independent and credible institutions or investigative body unless it is in their favor. Even in governance, they set up an independent body to review our 1991 constitution which was written under the past dictatorship of late President Momoh. The international community and our citizens spent money, time and effort to review our constitution and made recommendations but unfortunately, the APC government under the leadership of the lifetime leader and chairman Earnest Koroma rejected it. Even the recommendations from the ECOWAS court with regards to the unconditional sacking of his Vice President Sam Sumana was rejected
As opposition party, they even double down by rejecting the recent recommendations from the just concluded Commission Of Inquiry by foreign judges, but ironically some of them are still paying back the stolen monies whilst the lifetime leader and some of his thievery cohorts are appealing.
Finally, Freetonians are anxiously waiting for the conclusion of the ongoing special Audit which was ordered by parliament based on the fact that the suspended Auditor General failed in her duty to audit the FCC for 2 years. Hopefully if any corruption is found, then the ACC Commissioner Francis Ben Kaifala should make sure our donations from the international community be immediately transferred to the consolidated account instead of the private account of Mayor Yvonne Aki- Sawyer.
Thanks Mr Santhkie Sorie, I really appreciate your corrections about the way I looked at the present leadership of the APC party and the APC party of bye gone years under the Leadership of President Saika Stevens, vice president S I Koroma, Second Vice president CA Camara Taylor, Speaker of Parliament Hon. Musa Kabia, and leader of the Sierra Leone labour congress Kandeh Yillah, and inspector General of Police Hon. Bambay Kamara, this are the men we grew up to know. Politically and economically, under their leadership they might have used all sort of tactics, to stay in power and extend the economic and political malic leading to the ultimate overthrow of the Momoh government, during the early stages of RUF wars, that finally put a nail to the coffin of the 1978 one party state. Now every one has their opinion on their performance, but you can never accused them of cowardice, as the present rump of the APC leadership appears to be. What we have today, is the present APC leadership are more interested in fighting and back stabbings amongst themselves, than challenge the policies of the one direction government of President Bio. Effectively, they have surrendered all the political fighting instincts of the old APC and now given Bio the free pass to do what he wants to do. It is not good for the development of our democracy. This sissy political mentality has to stop. We need a strong opposition in our country. Just look at Kenya and South Africa where their leaders are taken to task by the opposition.
Abraham Amadu Jalloh, please allow me to make a slight correction: Osman Yansaneh and APC have never been in a slumber; they have been wide awake all along, but have been terrified of Maada Bio and his SLPP . Now and then Osman Foday Yansaneh stitches his spine together to deliver a statement against the SLPP regime. But he does so in a state of cowardice, constantly looking over his shoulders to see if Bio’s thugs ( Lawrence Lima included) are around the corner ready to lynch him. His boss, Earnest Koroma, who has no spine at all hides behind him. Nobody should allow Earnest to lead them in an operation, or else they will get killed for nothing because Earnest does not give them a clear order to return fire.
For the better part of four years Mayor Aki-Sawyer has been left alone to face the onslaught of SLPP. If she were not a strong woman she would have have capitulated in more ways than one. I hate to say this: If she were Mende and corrupt, she would not face the harassment and intimidation which have become part of her daily routine, emphasising the societal division which Bio has generated. Was the former chief minister (David Francis) ever investigated for corruption? Never. What about all the monies that keep disappearing in various government departments? Are they investigated? They will when the cows come home. If you have a president who is prone to surrounding himself with known criminals like Abass Bundu and Alpha Kanu, what do you expect?
I have said it countless times that I hate both APC and SLPP, but there are individuals in them that I politically love because of their forthrightness and patriotism. Her Worship Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyer is one of them. SLPP cannot cope with the plane in which she functions, that’s why they see her as the nemesis of their imminent collapse and so they detest her.
“What happened to a man is important, but not as important as he makes of it”. Every where around the world people seem to condemn Russia for unleashing agony on the people of Ukraine. Where is Sierra Leone’s position? Who among our authorities or civil society groups to say anything. I want to say to the Russians ” STOP THIS WAR”.
Come to the issue of harrassment on the Mayor as alleged. The fact of the matter is that an investigation always leads to some outcomes that may be good or bad. Every criminal investigation leads to some sort of results. It is now let for the authorities to decide. I want to conclude by saying “No man is perfect ” We all have made mistakes in the past.
Better late than never. Suddenly the APC party leadership have woken up out of their slumber and come out and join the fight that Mayor Akin Sawyer have been fighting on her own for a long time. She should be forgiven for thinking for far too long she’d been left on her own to man the barricades to stem the tide of onslaught by Bio’s and his over jealous supporters, that wants to make Freetown city Council ungovernable. Clearly, in the absence of any credible opposition to Bio’s one directionless policies, the Mayor is seen as the only alternative that ordinary people can look up to, any time the need to rescue them when national calamities strikes. The flash floodings, Fires at Susan’s Bay and more recently the Tanker disaster. A week is long in politics. It is in this pressure cocker of politics that Bio and his men that are doing everything, within and without the powers given to them by the constitution and applying unreasonable pressure on her so she can bend to their whims. As the fomer British Prime minister Margaret Thatcher was once labelled, “The lady is not for turning”.
Despite being thrown under the bus by the presnt spineless APC leadership, that are full of egos and infighting, the only persons that stands to gain is Bio himself. Which is an forgivable sin, given the four years of hell he has subjected our country to. Bios knows exactly how our country is plagued by corruption and tribalism. Both acronyms are too sides of the same coin. They tend to feed each one another. Recently Bio was asked how he felt about this divisions and what is he going to do about it. His answer was stark. Don’t blame me for the divisions in our country. The British colonial authorities were responsible for partitioning our country, to North, South, East and West. Now this is coming directly from the horses mouth. Yes there are divisions that exist in any given situation.
But the important thing here is the leadership of the country. Many people predicted,, the end of Apartheid in South Africa, where the white Minority have oppressed the Black majority from 1949 to 1994 will be engulfed in revenge killings when the white nationalist gave up power. It never come to pass because of one man, Nelson Mandela. So one individual is capable of changing the trajectory of his nation. I wouldn’t hold my breath with Bio at the helm.