Kabs Kanu: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 9 August 2022:
Our President, Retired Brig. Maada Bio, recklessly left the nation suffering, with doctors and nurses going on strike and travelled out to the UK to attend his SLPP party’s fundraising dance. And during the party, President Bio said that the SLPP was the best thing that happened to Sierra Leone.
How can somebody be so dishonest and deceitful ? SLPP is the best thing that happened to Sierra Leone ?
How dare this president make such deceitful and lying statements when you cannot point at any development project in Sierra Leone that was not conceived, initiated or completed by the APC ? What have the SLPP done for Sierra Leone to make them the best thing that happened to the country?
Where are the giant strides in education he is talking about when Sierra Leone has been adjudged by the IMF and the UN Human Development Index as the 5th worst country on earth in terms of human development ? Sierra Leone’s position did not shift upwards on the HDI since Bio came to power four years ago.
The educational system is so riven with miscues, incompetence , inadequacies and unfulfilled promises that teachers and lecturers threaten to go on strike ever so often ? What about the electricity ? What did the SLPP do to improve it ? It is a West African electricity Pool that was initiated during APC rule and was completed during Bio’s tenure . It has nothing to do with President Bio or the SLPP.
If people were arrested for making fake and outlandish claims and telling bold faced lies, Bio should have been behind bars, cooling his wakabot heels.
The SLPP is the worst thing that happened to Sierra Leone—-The first political party to bring and institutionalize tribalism in Sierra Leone; the first political party that introduced the army into politics by bringing the army to stage a coup in 1967 to avoid power legitimately being transferred to the APC after it won the elections; the first political party to introduce bush war in Sierra Leone politics through the Ndogbowusui conflict in 1983; SLPP , the political party that brought the rebel war through its puppets Foday Sankoh , Allie Kabbah, Mosquito, Faya Musa and others in 1992; SLPP, the political party whose supporters burned people alive in the streets of Sierra Leone when it was restored after its overthrow in 1997; SLPP, the political party of the most horrendous human rights abuses ever under the reign of this wicked and heartless Bio. I can go on and on and on .
SLPP is the worst thing that happened to Sierra Leone and if the next president does not arrest and indict Bio for the innocent lives he has killed , we will make life very uncomfortable for that President.
Bio and the SLPP are not an asset to our nation. He should stop lying and deceiving the world. Bio is the only president that would leave his country starving and suffering and doctors and nurses going on strike , with patients dying needlessly and travel all the way to UK just to dance goboi with his SLPP members . Is that the best thing that has happened to Sierra Leone?
How can our president build his life on lies , deceit and impunity ? God is watching you . You will one day account for everything you are doing to our nation.
Mr. Unisa Kamara, may God bless you for not being a blind zealot like these rabid SLPP mob who have come to take residence here. I wish you knew more and had told them more about me. Those of you who are not blinded by partisanship or biased will always educate these zealots about me. For neutralists on this forum, let me throw more light on what you just said about me. These blind zealots need to know. I am very proud of my record as a journalist in Sierra Leone and I am very proud that people writing books on Sierra Leone have started featuring me. Sheka Tarawallie, the former State House Press Secretary , in his first book ‘Pope Francis, Politics and the Mabanta Boy’ (2019) – published by Troubador [UK]. narrated how I fought for democracy in Sierra Leone with my pen. Two others, one a white man, had done so too.
When President Siaka Stevens sent thugs to attack Fourah Bay College in 1977 after the students demonstrated against him, I, KABS KANU, was the only journalist who condemned the act in an article in the then SLPP newspaper, THE PEOPLE, then edited by Brima Gbow ( Whose pen name was Julius Cole ). In the article, I condemned the attack and accused President Stevens of overreacting and warned that he had thrown fire that will burn the nation as well. Because of my article and my penmanship in general at FBC and downtown and support to the students demonstration ( I had graduated and was a teacher ) , I was arrested and taken to Pademba Road Prisons where I was detained in the same cell with the SLPP old war-horse, Hon. Mannah Kpaka and the two sons of the late executed Makeni Chief, Bai Makari N’Silk. Shaki was going to charge us with Treason , including Hindolo Trye, but the international community and the Sierra Leone Labour Congress tried to talk him out of it. In the final analysis, Shaki agreed to free everybody but he insisted , “That teacher who writes all the nonsense against me ( Meaning me), I will not free him.” The only thing that saved me was that as the student confusion spread in the country , Shaki feared the students would have drawn the workers into a big strike that would have brought his government down. He called the Labour Congress to State House to beg them. It was they who gave him the pre-condition that if he did not release everybody, they will not cooperate with him . One of the labour leaders called LATTY, who lived close to us at Brookfields and now lives in Maryland , later told us about all these things. He told me I was lucky the Labour Congress pleaded on my behalf. I spent two months in jail.
Shortly after the chaos, Pius Foray , along with Daba Kallon, Frank Kposowa and others set up the TABLET newspaper and I was one of the writers. I continued to criticize President Siaka Stevens and the APC until I was forced to go into exile in Liberia when my life was being threatened so much, with paid secret gunmen trailing me even when I went to the club . But in Liberia, I coontinued attacking President Stevens. Somebody went and warned my elder brother and my wife that Shaki and President Tolbert were friends and if i did not stop sending articles to the TABLET, Shaki will one day have Tolbert arrest me and send me back to face justice in Sierra Leone for seditious libel against the President. The threat was real and my family’s life was in danger.
Before all this, I was the leading pen man at Chuks Press at FBC where I relentlessly criticized the APC Government and the administration to the point that whenever students allowances were delayed, the students union president, Kemoh Sulimani took my articles off the boards and carried them to the Principal, Professor Harry Sawyer, crying : “Pa, you see, the students have started agitating for their money O, and if we do not release it, they will demonstrate”. Shortly after , allowances would be released. I became the voice of the students, never so more as when Boubaccar Njai-Bah, the real architect of the 1977 students revolution, became students union president and appointed me Minister of Propaganda for the FBC Students Union. I was also Publisher of SPOTLIGHT magazine and set up COCORIOKO on campus in 1973.
But even before this, anybody who attended CKC or taught there between 1966-71, knew me for my writings and criticisms of the system . I had my own handwritten newspaper called FREEDOM NATIONALE and my teachers and fellow students loved it. During the NPRC era and the war, I was also active in the international press, especially Foday Kandeh’s PROGRESS , which had moved to New York ; Dauda Bangura’s SIERRA LEONE NEWSLETTER and Joseph Kappia’s THE WEST AFRICAN JOURNAL where I criticized the junta and Foday Sankoh relentlessly. I also criticized the Kabbah government extensively. So, who are these SLPP zealots on this forum now questioning my motives because Iam criticizing President Bio and the SLPP ? Who are you ? What do you know about the fight for democracy and the people’s rights in Sierra Leone that some of us have fought for half a century ? Who are you ? Because I condemn the disaster-presidency of Bio, does that make me a bad citizen ? What about the journalists who used to attack APC when we were in power ? Why are they not bad citizens ? Because they are SLPP ? When people criticize SLPP, they cease to be good citizens , right ?
Please leave me alone to do what I have done with distinction for over 50 years and for which I have many impressive awards from reputable organizations , including NOSLINA ( The elite Sierra Leone version of the American Academys). COCORIOKO is one of the leading newspapers in West Africa and need I tell you that some international media used my reports, even mentioning the paper’s name, this week while covering the demonstration ? Some that did not name us used our storyline . Cocorioko has over one million people reading it daily so your misguided statements about the paper does not bother us. What has not been said about me at SLPP BINTUMANI FORUM and I am still reigning ! ! ! !
MORE ANON
In Sierra Leone’s best interests what differentiates PAOPA-SLPP from TOLONGBO-APC to justify voting for either by any resident eligible Sierra Leonean in future elections – lists will be appreciated. Seton During
The message is partly true though the credence and credentials of the messenger are questionable. The SLPP is obviously not the best thing that has happened in Sierra Leone since toast bread. So do is the APC. On the contrary, both our dinosaurian parties – one of the oldest in Africa- have been a curse, a casted spell and an abomination.
I put the former special needs teacher, Kabs Kanu, who self-professes his love for the country rather than being in politics for the money, in the same bracket or under the same rubric of unprincipled PR spin from the likes of the current Government operatives such as Alpha Saidu Bangura and Alpha Kanu. I got a video of you telling fibs for the APC in Sommerset and Alpha Kanu doing likewise in one Brussels meeting. Alpha Saidu Bangura’s trail of double speak is trawlable on the www. With all the things he said about Bio, it is a shocker he is now die hard and gard-core praise singer. The way you were praise-singing Ernest Koroma, you would think we were better than Botswana and he lifted Sierra Leone from the bottom 8 of the Human Development Index during his tenure and your spinning field days.
It is only few of us, patriotic and men of the people, including the editor of this respected and pro-Sierra Leone online paper, who will always say it as it is, irrespective of whether the tenant at State House that is fouhd wanting is our tribesman, regional man, area man or school mate. This editor once asked Ernest Bai Koroma to be impeached. Rightly so. He is now so disenchanted ahd disillusohed with Bio and his caboodle of former UK jobless or part-employed that he is insinuating that the ex soldier is on borrowed time or on countdown.
Lastly for the one calling himself Benji, do you know Victor Foe -AKA pekin pelleh?
Mr Kamanda ,you are spot on .I wish every Sierra Leonean will listen to your wise words about how we should learn from our past mistakes that brought us the RUF civil wars .For some of us we lost members of our families in that brutal and sensless civil war ,all in the name of fighting corruption and promoting transparency and accountability between the government and the governed.Maybe we the ordinary men and women in the country are ready to move on.I think your words of wisdom is best directed at our out of touch political leaders that have the ultimate power to make the necessary changes in our country by creating the economic opportunities that our country is desperately crying out for to meet the challenges of the 21st century. .Few African countries that were the basket cases of Africa , and just like us engaged in brutal civil wars in the 80s and 90s are now enjoying the peace dividends they instituted after their civil wars end .They are now posting the fastest economic growth in the African continent ,whilst our country under Bio is putting our country’s economic prospect on a reverse gear ,right on the cliff edge .
At the end of the day none of the contributors on this platform wish any ill on our country .And I will hazad a guess none of us are members of any past APC government, or the present one directionless government of Bio .Or dare I say fanatical members of APC /SLPP parties .Suffice to say we don’t have the powers to make the necessary changes that we want to see take place in our country.At the same time you can’t stop us from stating the bloody obvious.Our country is surrounded by failed states with in the ECOWAS region and beyond .Mali , Guinea , Burkina Fasso etc. And when you think Mali is eight hundred miles away from us ,and their government is engaged is a deadly fight with Islamic fanatics that thinks they have the best prescription to address the cost of living crisis affecting the West African region , any sane government in power in Freetown should look at what’s happening around their neighbourhood and say I don’t want this for my people . Islamic terrorist , that are breaded and can’t look out of place from the Mullahs of the 12th century that just emerged from the caves of the middle east with an AK 47 rifle flung on their malnourished bodies like dead men walking with flip flops ,dishing out advice about investment opportunities in the high-tech economic rat race our country finds itself is no brainer. Whether is in Sierra Leone or the Shahel the men of violence is not the answers to the economic woes facing our people .We need our government to invest in primary developments like education and training for the youths , good roads ,electricity and help small business owners and establish a micro finances and credit facilities for young people wanting to start up businesses. Right now what we’ve seen the Bio government have all their priorities in the wrong way around .
Until his government set clear achievable goals for his government , chances are we are going to see the same unfortunate things happen in our country .What we have in Sierra Leone is plenty of cleaver people at the bottom rug of the economic ladder and not so cleaver people at the top of the political pyramid.They are so short sighted they can’t see beyond their noses. Otherwise if our country’s human and natural resources is used correctly for the benefit of all not the few , our language of how we discuss about our country will change over time.We will be talking about real estate developments .The latest news about the performance of the Sierra Leone Stock market .How strong is the Leoen relative to the US Dollar.The latest film release by Sierra Leonean filmmakers telling stories about our country. Under Bio all of the above mentioned is possible, but I certainly don’t think he is the right man to deliver it .
Guys, Let’s stop this type of politics in Sierra Leone. We have graduated from all forms of wicked life. Let’s try to build the nation rather than inciting and destroying of property. We need to learn from our past mistakes 1990 -2001
Unfortunately, when it comes to the trouble history of Sierra Leone the vast majority of the country’s population and the media landscape are unaware or have not being taught the history of our country. Or knows about it but chose to ignore it at our perils.We know about it’s existence but our school curriculum have never catered for our past history , but rather concentrate on teaching us European and little bit of West African histroy anchored on the Trans -Atlantic slave trade. And even the history of the slave trade is not as detailed as it should be .You get the impression the Slave trade was all about greedy Whitemen coming over to our West African coast line and kidnapping unsuspecting Black families and bundling them in to slave ships to the so-called New World. The facts remain African chiefs and their underlings helped, facilitated and in vast majority of cases benifeted on the barbaric trade . Bia Bureh and Mammy Yoko’s great resistance in their collective fight against British colonialism are reduced to the footnotes of history and not celebrated as war heroes as they deserves .
In modern times , The APC manufactured Ndogbowusu crises that erupted in the South in 80s ,and the war waged on the Fulanis by Hon .Thaimu Bangura and his blood thirsty ilk in Loko lSanda , Bomabili District,and further North the Fulanis pitched against the Yalunkas and Limbas in Musia , Bafodia and Falaba in the 1982 elections , in which many innocent lives were lost in those state sponsored manufactured tribal conflicts ,was just a taste of what befell our country in the early 90s when Foday Sankoh and his henchmen started the RUF war .
All those events are linked and are like dominoes connected with a string of anger from those in the the receiving end of State sponsored terrorism against particular ethinic groups that are deemed trouble makers .So one would have thought Boi that is steeped in histroy would taken a different course of action and help bring our country and it’s people together . So far none of the issues he promised us he will tackle have come to pass .Corruption, lack of infrastructure, education , health , electricity , protecting women and girls ,housing ,tackling the climate emergency and the cost of living crisis facing families up and down the country are just some of the challenges facing us .And we continue to face under his watch .
Like brother Med Sillah said above, no one expects the author Mr. Kabs Kanu to say anything good about President Bio and the SLPP. However, at almost 70+ years, one would expect Kabs Kanu to be truthful in his write-up. He abandoned Sierra Leone in the 70s as a teacher and went to Liberia because of the poor salary and poor conditions of service for teachers. And it was his beloved APC that was at the helm of affairs. In 1983 the APC was firmly in control, and we had a single party. Due to the authoritarian nature of the then APC president Stevens, he would impose force on the people against their choices of who should represent them in the one-party state Parliament. When the aggrieved party rebelled, he would send his thugs, the SSD (a 99% northern tribal outfit), to violently suppress the victims. They did it in Pujehun, which led to the locals going to the bush, thus the Ndogbowusu. He did it in against the Fulas in Sanda, norther Sierra Leonean which resulted in several skirmishes and deaths, and the death rate was higher than what was recorded in Pujehun district during the Ndorgbowusu incident, and yet Mr. Kanu is gleefully twisting history because his party is not power.
The Malang Bridge collapsed in February 2013. In 2012, after the elections, the African Minerals Mining Company, owned by Frank Tunis, was hoodwinked into paying the APC regime led by President Koroma a whooping sum of over a hundred million dollars upfront up front for a mining concession. What happened to Frank Tunis and Moseray Fadiga, the two who were hoodwinked to part with the money is another story for another day.
The reconstruction of the Mabang Bridge in 2013 was projected to cost 9.8 Million dollars. Instead of using the money they had collected from African Minerals to construct the Bridge, the PAC led by Koroam went to the EU for help with an inflated figure of over 25 Million dollars. The EU did not entertain their bloated requests, and so the Mabang Bridge remained collapsed even though the Bridge was in the APC stronghold for four years until the people voted the APC out of power. And yet you have a guy like Kabs Kanu, one of the beneficiaries of the loots from the African Minerals payment hankering, who lies here about development projects. Ebola came in late 1014, so you cannot use Ebola as an excuse. The EU that finally helped the Bio regime with 11 Million to construct the Bridge was around in 2013. The EU did not have Corona to grapple with as it is today, and yet they did not feel comfortable dishing out money to the kleptomaniac Koroma regime to construct a bridge that is supposedly in their stronghold.
When President Koroma took over in 2007, he inherited NASSIT, NASCA, NRA, NATCOM, and the ACC, all initiated and installed by the SLPP government of President Kabba, and these are all sustainable development initiatives. Instead of improving on them, he tribalized the institution. Ask Tejan Cole, the first ACC boss under Koroma. He ran away from the country to Austria before sending his resignation letter. The vindictive Koroma regime went after his sister Madam Aisha Johansen, the former SLFA boss, relentlessly because his brother attempted to expose the deep-rooted corruption involving prominent members within the Koroma regime, including President Koroma himself, Zainab Bangura, Hasfsatu Kabba, and President Koroma’s Junior brother. Kabba wants Bio to achieve what Koroma Did not complete in 11 years as President. Koroma came to power on a sound foundation left by his predecessor, President Kabba. When he left, even the foundation he met broke, and Bio has the herculean task of rebuilding.
Nobody goes to Kabs Kanu’s tribalistic Newspaper anymore, which is why he is exporting his lies and hate here. Mr. Kabba Kanu is the only man with three nationalities and the only man who held a Ministerial position in a country that he has not visited for over 24 years. Does that not tell any sane man who this man and the person who appointed him are-Corrupt?
When Koroma came to power in less than eight months, he commissioned the Bumbuna Hydroelectricity. He claimed it as his success story. Even Kindergarten kids would like no that those projects take years to build. President Kabba informed the nation that the project was 96% completed by his government in his handover note. Koroma claimed all the success for himself, and here we have Kabba Kanu doing what he does best, telling lies to the home that the next APC government if ever that is going to happen in his and our lifetime would make him Ambassador to the USA.
Today we have an actual separation of powers in the country, with a Krio heading the Judiciary as Chief Justice, A Themne controlling the Legislature as Speaker of Parliament, and a Mende leading the executive as President. Facts check this with Koroma- Speaker was a Themne, Chief Justice was a Themne, and Executive was a Themne. Mr. Kabba Kanu, you can fool some people sometimes, but you cannot fool some of us most of the time.
Dear Mr. Benjamin Jones,
Everything you have said is because you are in support of SLPP and you support President Bio fr . Is this Kabbs Kanu the Kabbs Kanu that some of us know who was one of our top journalists that speak truth to power and President Siaka Stevens in Sierra Leone ? .
President Stevens jail him at Pademba road prison . He run away to Liberia when he try to kill him so let’s give him credit for being strong in checking the powers the be. We need him. He was at Tablet newspaper with Pios Foray, Hindolo Trye, Cleo Hanciles, Saba Tumoe and others. I don’t see what he said about President Bio that you find is not true. Is Corruption, bad government policies, innocent bloodshed, tribalism everything he said correctly not going on ? Kabbs Kanu is speaking the truth . Please accept it and let your government change.
My main advice to anyone trying to criticize the president whether you are supporting APC or not, just politely advice your leaders to bring an agenda to campaign on, if there is none, please create one. Remind the people about your past if you led the country to the good direction, during your tenure in office. That’s why when you are in power you have to be careful what you say, do to the people. One quality about Bio, he’s the most quiet President I’ve ever seen in my life time, this guy is too moderate, nobody can say; this is what he said to me.
Anyway it seems to me like, the 2023 general and presidential elections already been won, it’s over. Now it looks like I myself have to run for President 2028 because I want to run the country as a business concerns.
I am glad that the planed protest was canceled because I was totally worried for the innocent lives, as politicians always give out money to children to fight for them with their blood, while their families are in safe haven. The only way I do fight for a politician, is to cast my vote for him/her, rather than that, see you later. When it comes to ” DEMOCRACY”, there’s not much difference between the two parties, APC and SLPP.
I am not expecting this writer to say rosy things about President Bio and the SLPP Government given that he is a staunch member of the APC. However President Bio has made fundamental errors that Presidents tend to avoid especially during their first term in office.
On the governance aspect he seems to be aloof and insensitive to the plight of his people during challenging times. His lack of engagement with his people has left a vacuum in leadership. He has put faith in cronies that are out of depth with their briefs and lack the required experience. President Bio has been a disappointment to many including those in his party.
On the personal front the president has allowed his wife to be actively involved in politics making political statements and innuendos that are unhelpful to the president and the party. Party elders and key stakeholders with no integrity are cosying up to the first lady in order to maintain and get favours from the President.
On the issue of tribalism I will say presidents make appointments based on where their support comes from bearing in mind that no particular tribe can bring a President in to office. This is more of a “Bo school” government than a mende one. It is a fact that the APC and SLPP are one of the same with politicians moving from one to the other depending on which of them is in power therefore the APC am afraid is not a credible alternative to the SLPP given their recent past.
What our Country needs are men and women of high integrity to be involved in our politics otherwise we are left with those whose interest comes before the nation.
This author speaks what every Sierra Leonean is saying within their hearts and God will bless you for that.
Papanii Kamara, thank you, bro. All these critics are SLPP. We have all taken sides in Sierra Leone. The SLPP man will never accept the truth about his party and anybody who proclaims it from the rooftops is deranged, unpatriotic and does not have his marbles right. In the 1970s and 80s, when I mercilessly slaughtered the APC at Chuks Press , in Cocorioko and Spotlight newspapers ( FBC campus) and the TABLET newspaper downtown later, I was hailed as a hero . I was the best journalist and people tried to offer me a share of their allowances and salaries. Later, they turned out to be SLPP supporters . Today, it is the SLPP on the gullotine and I am the worst Sierra Leonean alive. We are used to it. The next APC government will be savagely handled by COCORIOKO if it does the same things that the SLPP are doing. Those of you who knew me during my working days with the likes of Hindolo Trye and Pios Foray know I have returned to the Kabs Kanu they knew before. When APC returns, it is not going to be the KABS KANU of 2007-2018. I have already served notice that if APC returns and replicates what SLPP is doing, I will be bloody with them as well. But let people criticize me now. They have a right to their opinions. After all, are we not in a democracy ? What I write are my views. I am entitled to them. The journalists on the other side bootlicking Maada Bio and the SLPP –that you have no problems with–are also entitled to their opinions. There is no country in the world where the media has not taken sides, even in the advanced democracies. No newspaper or media is objective in the true sense of the word. Objectivity is an illusion taught in journalism schools. It is not applied in real life. But I accept your criticisms, gentlemen. They will help me to be a better person.
“But I accept your criticisms, gentlemen. They will help me to be a better person.”
I like that. If all journos are not fairweather journalists but journalists for all seasons, like the Sierra Leone Telegraph editor, Sierra Leone will be a better place.