Not just a fool!

Dr. Sama Banya – Puawui

The Sierra Leone Telegraph: 20 May 2014

As a boy in Primary school, and for Pete’s sake, I would not want Ambassador Umaru Wurie to gloat over this admission that my Bo School was a primary school, while he attended a Secondary school.

Dear readers, I regret that only members of the Old Bo Boys Association (OBBA), would understand the joke behind the above admission.

The explanation must wait for another time. But like I was saying, one of our favourite quotations in Primary School, was to yell at someone who just boasted about something or some knowledge, that they did not after all know that: “HE WHO KNOWS NOT, KNOWS NOT THAT HE KNOWS NOT IS A FOOL.” I hope readers got it.

Some people often pretend to be knowledgeable; for instance they would interpret sections of the Sierra Leone Constitution with the confidence of either Law makers or members of the Legal profession with particular expertise on the country’s constitution.

There is a debate currently going on in the media, in taxi cabs and poda podas, in bars and restaurants, among political opponents, right across the country – on whether our sitting President should go for a third term and succeed himself, hence the phrase “after u nar u.”

And the man who has started all this humbug – proponent of this betrayal of the peoples’ sacred trust, is the former SLPP Member of Parliament for Njaluahun chiefdom in the Kailahun district, who is now deputy propaganda secretary of the ruling APC.

This young man in whom his people put all their trust by electing him to Parliament in 2007, failed them and when he realized that they intended to dump him in 2012, he began to make secret overtures to the ruling party.

Whatever transpired between them has never been made public. And like I advise people, the APC is like the mafia, in that no one double crosses them and gets away with it.

Robin Farley soon faced trumped up charges of procuring underage school children to register as voters in Segbwema.

He was charged to court and refused bail, until after several sittings and a firm undertaking to deliver. He was later bailed by an unsuspecting SLPP and released.

As soon as Parliament was prorogued in 2012, he crossed over to the APC and the charges against him were immediately dropped.

Farley now makes every effort and uses every opportunity to prove to his new friends, that he is as a matter of fact, more APC than Ernest Bai Koroma.

He often dresses in an all out red outfit, even in the most inappropriate places – witness the funeral of late William Smith in Kenema.

Farley has not given up on his unholy campaign of third term for the President.
But when it comes to the case of “a little knowledge being dangerous”, the Special Executive Assistant to his Excellency, who carries the acronym of SEA would be difficult to beat.

The good lady has been quoted as saying that she was opposed to the third term proposal for the President.

But just as I prepared to say “BRAVO”, she was further quoted as saying that she saw nothing wrong in a third term and cited the cases of the former British Prime minister Tony Blair and the current German Chancellor Angela Merkel, both of whom had been re-elected to office over and over again.

The lady must have been cock-a-hoop that she had hit the bull’s eye, that is until someone educated her that no one voted for Tony Blair as prime Minister, nor for Angela Merkel as German Chancellor.

Those people were elected as leaders of their respective political parties. Neither the British nor the Germans vote for Prime minister or Chancellor. They vote for their respective political parties, whose members in turn elected their leaders.

And, as was pointed out to the lady, the British head of state is her Majesty Queen Elizabeth who is there for life.

The Germans voted for their President, who is the head of state and who must face the electorate again and a again.

Our President Koroma was voted for directly as head of government and head of state, and our constitution limits his term to two five year periods.

If our self-proclaimed knowledgeable lady made the comparison deliberately, knowing the facts, then she is no better than Robin Farley or Balogun Koroma (Photo), and could only have been trying to “bamboozle” an innocent and ignorant people.

On the other hand, if she did not know the difference, then she should have kept to her opposition to a third term and not opened her mouth to display outright ignorance, an action which recalls to mind one of Siaka Stevens sayings:

“To keep one’s mouth shut and let people assume that you are a fool, than to open it and clear all doubts.”

Neither the British nor the Germans vote for their political leaders. They vote for political parties who are not limited to fixed terms in government.