Opposition APC lackeys and their colonial buffoon – an Op ed

Concerned Sierra Leonean: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 18 September 2018:

During its failed bid to retain power in March, the APC party went apoplectic, condemning supposed foreign intervention aimed, it claimed, at orchestrating ‘regime change’.

The party’s loudmouths particularly targeted the British as the chief villains of their threadbare fantasy. Guy Warrington? Horrors!

APC’s mindless chatterers went ballistic with the claim that the urbane gentleman – Guy Warrington, had long abandoned his post as British High Commissioner in Freetown and was busy stuffing election ballot boxes in favour of the SLPP’s presidential candidate.

One earnest (pun intended) APC hack, even invoked Governor Clarkson’s eponymous prayer to rain curse on the Queen’s representative in Freetown.

The name Neil Coyle wasn’t heard in any quarter in Freetown at the time. The 39-year old Member of Parliament for Bermondsey & Old Southwark in London was keeping himself busy raining vile insults on his Labour Party’s leaders or anyone in Parliament he disagrees with.

 

The impetuous lad at one point went so far as to describe the government of Prime Minister Theresa May as “full of bastards.”

Coyle’s vulgarity and crassness even prompted his party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to make a formal complaint about the youthful MP’s lack of refinement and mental balance last year.

But the vileness for which his compatriots shun Coyle as a fool and fanatic with suspect self-control, is the one that most appeals to APC partisans in their moment of defeat and desolation.

So, ostracized by his own party in England, Mr. Coyle has now found an enthusiastic fan base thousands of miles away, among disoriented APC supporters in a country he has never visited.

In defeat, the once hubristic ruling party is clutching at every straw.

Claiming that many of his constituents – whom he says originated from Sierra Leone – regularly deluge his office with horror stories of atrocities committed by the current government, Mr. Coyle has taken upon his contemptible self to vilify the Government of President Julius Maada Bio.

A creature of social media, Coyle recently published a video clip showing himself, a sorry bland figure with a vapid face, wearing a white T-shirt boldly emblazoned at the front – “#SALONE LIVES MATTER”, and at the back- “SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY.”

His mock-earnest voice could be heard advertising himself as the advocate for a “strong, vibrant Sierra Leonean community” in his London constituency.

The crass frivolity of invoking the murderous police depredations against black people in the United States to talk about a situation very markedly different aside, Mr. Coyle’s exhibitionist foolishness grates for two reasons.

In the first instance, any normal human being in his position should have attempted to speak to a wider range of people than the few Sierra Leoneans who have access to him, to make such nasty assaults against a sovereign country.

Coyle did not crosscheck his information with the Sierra Leone High Commission in London or with his country’s own High Commission in Freetown. He did not take the opportunity to visit Sierra Leone, even if briefly to make his own assessment.

He merely spoke with a handful of corrupt APC lackeys, who have since fled to the UK to enjoy their ill-gotten wealth.

We know that APC presidential aspirant – Jon Sisay, grew up in Coyle’s constituency, and his younger brother – an obscure disc jockey, lives there. Kholifa Koroma, wanted here for the fraudulent sale of Sierra Leone’s diplomatic passport, is also believed to be seeking refuge there. So, we hear, is Kaifala Marah, the hapless former APC finance minister and bank governor under whose watch millions of dollars went missing.

More importantly, the allegations that Coyle is broadcasting are so grave that any serious human being in his position should do more than take to social media in a priapic burst of enthusiasm. He claims that the government is killing its own citizens. He does not name a single victim.

The extent of the killings Coyle is claiming should normally prompt a responsible lawmaker to call for independent investigation and prosecution. Instead, Coyle uses the opportunity to exhibit his foolishness.

For the records, there is no political violence in Sierra Leone. President Bio has not arrested a single opposition figure. No one has been killed for political reasons.

There is a single case of fatality arising out of police action to curb the illegal narcotic trade, which was neither ordered by State House nor endorsed by anyone appointed by President Bio.

The current Inspector General of Police was appointed by the former APC Government of President Ernest Bai Koroma, as are almost all the senior officers in the force.

So where is the evidence of the SLPP Government’s involvement in human rights violation?

If the intention of the electorally defeated APC lackeys is to enlist a loudmouth MP in London to derail the putative commission of inquiry into their massive theft and looting of state’s resources, then they are seriously mistaken.

The misguided efforts of Coyle and his APC brigade will only strengthen the SLPP government’s determination to expose and punish all their corrupt leaders.