Abayomi Tejan: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 01 December 2024:
Although it is early yet to pre-empt who might bear the SLPP flag in 2028, it could be reasonably surmised that the current Vice President, Mohammed Juldeh Jalloh, a Sierra Leonean Fula, would be one of the frontline contenders.
If that happens, the geopolitical landscape could assume a less tribal and regional outlook and, hopefully, bridge the nascent tribal rift that has bedevilled politics in Sierra Leone since 1964, when Sir Albert Margai succeeded his brother, the first Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai that year.
When that happened, according to John Cartwright, a historian who lectured at Fourah Bay College in the early sixties wrote in his book ‘Politics in Sierra Leone’: “The resentment of the Temnes rose, and Sir Albert was unable to contain it.”
Since 1964, politics assumed desperate proportions, which played into the hands of Siaka Stevens who won a narrow majority for the APC in the following general elections in 1968, picking Sorie Ibrahim Koroma, a Temne hardliner, as his Vice President.
Between 1968 and 1992, coups and alleged coup attempts ushered in an era of political desperation that culminated in a war in 1991, the same year Sierra Leone returned to multiparty democracy after almost two decades of APC one party rule under Siaka Stevens.
Before he died in 1988, in 1985 Stevens chose the head of the military, Joseph Saidu Momoh, a Limba, to replace him. With a war raging in the hinterland, the economy battered, Saidu Momoh caved in to international and national calls for restoration of multiparty democracy in 1991.
In 1992, Saidu Momoh and the APC were ousted from power by the military, marking another milestone in the polity of the state. The National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC,) the military junta that took power, was caught in a quandary; prosecuting a war on the one hand, and dealing with heightened calls both from within and without for restoration of constitutional rule at the same time.
Democracy and constitutional rule were restored in 1996 when Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, a Mandingo, became president under the SLPP.
Late Tejan Kabbah was deliberately chosen over other just as competent Mende, Charles Margai for example, aspirants in order to not raise any tribal sentiments as was witnessed in 1964.
Tejan Kabbah’s first term was fraught with complications, including yet another junta interregnum in 1997 by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council AFRC.
While the international peace brokers struggled to keep in balance a precarious peace, the forces of democracy weathered all the storm, and Tejan Kabbah’s government was reinstated through a Nigeria led ECOMOG military intervention.
Again, in January 1999, recalcitrant rebels stormed Freetown for the first time since the war started in March 1991. This time round, their actions were unbearable to the international community.
While ECOMOG struggled against all odds to keep the rebels at bay, Britain, Sierra Leone’s closest international ally, had become thoroughly exasperated.
In a frontal battle with rebels holding eleven British soldiers hostage at Okra Hills just outside Freetown, British Special Forces obliterated any threat to the capital. It was then that the war truly ended, and disarmament, demobilization and reconstruction began.
Throughout the war, Special Court for Sierra Leone records show that tribalism had begun to shape the leadership and objectives of the various factions that had no clear-cut agenda to govern.
Those who carried the greatest responsibility for War Crimes committed during the war were arrested, prosecuted and punished accordingly.
Looking at their leadership tells the story: Foday Sankoh, leader of the Revolutionary United Front RUF, was a Temne who harboured great resentment for the political system.
He predicated his ‘revolution’ on the existence of unbridled corruption among politicians, although it was clear that Charles Taylor in Liberia was the real instigator using Foday Sankoh as surrogate. For Taylor, it was all about revenge and diamonds.
Not long after the RUF launched it’s rebellion in 1991, the political dynamics revved up to defence mode, giving rise to congeries of Civil Defence Forces (CDF), fighting alongside regular troops to, as it were, defend the nation.
The Temnes formed the ‘Gbethis;’ the Mendes ‘Kamajoh;’ the Kurankos were first to establish the ‘Tamaboro,’ all vowing to defend their homeland.
Again, going by records of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, allegations of ethnic consideration in selecting targets and the enemy were levied against the Kamajoh, hence the arrest of Hinga Norman, it’s leader, and prosecution by the Special Court.
So, even in open armed conflict as in politics, the nascent tribal divide between Northwest and Southeast is ever present. To be continued.
That is precisely the point: it is damning that, in Sierra Leone’s political culture and climate, the possibility of someone of Fula ethnicity becoming president is considered extremely remote – dependent on an extraordinary, unforeseeable and uncontrollable occurrence.
We remain an ethnically and regionally fractured country, far removed from a successful, forward-looking democratic society where merit and ability hold any real value.
I think he could be President only through a force majeure and if elections at party and national level are above board. You guys still underestimate and play down the role of the tribe and how it is interwoven nicely in the very social fabric of Sierra Leone. Just do a jobs audit of Government Jobs after every change of Government to get my drift.
Talking about national elections, did that lady at the helm of Ghana’s electoral commission not do a wonderful job?
https://ec.gov.gh/
The chair person had balls and was a lady not for turning. Her website was of modern design. She invited everyone to check for their names on the online register pre-polling day. All results and forms were uploaded on her website with signatures of presidential candidates’ reps at the count appended.
No flimsy excuses were trumpeted and peddled. Nothing on the website about her not mandated to publish granulated results of the elections or stating the obvious or cliche that promoting democracy through bla bla bla… Her conduct of the elections were so above board that her tabulated results were carbon copies of those held by the presidential candidates leaving the ruling party’s candidate no choice but to pre-empt the results announcement by the election management body’s chairperson and congratulate the opposition candidate on his stunning victory.
She just did it. I won’t be surprised if it was said that she placed hidden cameras in every polling station to prevent any shenanigans or untowards. The ECSL of Sierra Leone should poach her from Ghana to clean the stables before any elections are held again in the country. She was anything but Mohammed Konneh.
If we are to grow into a successful and forward-looking nation, any Sierra Leonean with the right qualifications as outlined in our constitution should be able to aspire to the highest political office in the land, irrespective of their ethnicity and regional provenance.
This means that if the current VP who is Fula eventually emerges as his party’s next presidential flagbearer, nothing whatsoever should stop him from succeeding President Bio should voters make him their choice.
And one more thing. The word ‘nascent’ features repeatedly in the article in reference to the sharp tribal/ethnic and regional divisions and antagonisms that beset politics and its practices in our homeland.
However, as we achieved political independence well over half a century ago, I have been wondering whether “nascent” as a descriptive word for this enduring political sin of ours still has any purchase.
It seems to me that terms like “full-blown” and “full-fledged” are more appropriate as they emphasise a condition that has reached its complete or fully developed state, contrasting directly with the idea of something in its early or developing stages that “nascent” suggests.