Sierra Leone Telegraph: 9 December 2020:
President Dr Julius Maada Bio has today concluded his three-day official visit to the Gabonese Republic, where he met and had bilateral meetings with President Ali Bongo Ondimba and other senior government officials in the capital, Libreville.
According to State House report in Freetown, President Bio also visited the Gabonese Special Economic Zones (GSEZs) to witness major agricultural and industrial projects being undertaken by the Central African country.
Gabon is endowed with abundant petroleum and foreign private investments. It is one of the most prosperous countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
After his closed-door meeting at the Presidential Palace in Libreville, President Bio told the press that although his meeting was private, what he saw during his tour of the economic zones and other industrial areas was quite impressive.
President Bio praised the high-quality products being produced at three of the country’s major factories, including La Sante Pharmaceuticals, the first manufacturing plant prducing generic drugs and medicines in Gabon.
The president also visited Star Ply Gabon, a conglomerate of companies that produces high-quality plywood at the Special Economic Zone in Nkok.
President Bio and his entourage are expected to return to Freetown today, Wednesday 9 December 2020.
Travilling Is Not The Problem, But We Need To See Developmen. Salone Is Crying. God Help Us. Tino Kansay
Ladies and Gentlemen. What did this President bring back home from this unnecessary visit? Bottom line, it’s all about pocketing taxpayers money in the name of per diem. Can you imagine? God help protect our taxpayers money.
Why should we always have to copy from what other leaders are doing for their respective countries, I assume, based on their own realities and circumstances, that we cannot do ourselves, if we have a clear sense of direction and focus on the domestic priorities, can strategically think and plan to execute a set domestic agenda based on the focused priorities?
President Bio needs to stay focused inside Sierra Leone for one full year, touring the chiefdoms, Districts and provinces, speaking, consulting with and hearing the people, definitely, he would get some ideas to help him govern successfully which he would never gain from a visit to Ali Bongo Odimba or Gabon factories. Bio will discover that the people of Sierra Leone need the basics, like pipe borne water and electricity supply, not all these prestigious projects he is launching that are far fetched solutions to the urgent problems of hunger and poverty.
What on earth is this delusional President exactly looking for in Gabon? Someone, anyone feel free to speak out and tell me what good has ever come out of all his frantic wild goose chases. It is quite easy to see that the man is distraught with hopelessness, fear and anxiety. When will this senseless pursuit of nonexistent investors ever come to an end? A president that ignorantly believes that he can easily bypass all the essential preconditions to be observed in a democracy still
in its infancy before Peace, Stability and Prosperity can be attained is in dire need of serious mental evaluation. Answer – How many freeloaders, and bloodsucking leeches were in the President’s grand entourage? How many of his tribesmen flying First Class, have ever paid a dime into the coffers of our struggling nation in the form of taxes?
Goodness gracious! Meritorious service to our nation is totally meaningless to these people, they wear the badges of brazen exploitation shamelessly on their tribalistic shoulders.(lol). Who is it that said that vultures wouldn’t eat anything that was alive but only decayed rotten flesh? The Criminal SLPP Cabal has proved you wrong! These huge feeders, with oxygen balloon sized tummies will gladly devour anything, everything breathing, semi-conscious or dead – their actions speak volumes in this regard.(lol)
Gabon is one of the shinning bright lights in Africa. Just like Sierra Leone, Gabon is blessed with natural resources like petroleum and has the fourth GDP per capita per head in the African continent. But that is where the comparison ends. Given the restrictions placed on air travel due to the COVID19 pandemic, I wonder how Bio is managing to joggle his work as president and still have time in his diary to clock in air miles, whilst majority of the other world leaders are spending time with their people, and guiding them on how to overcome this COVID19 deadly virus and it’s aftermath; in terms of lost jobs and how to chart a recovery programme, it seemed to me is the least of priorities, for our flying president. When was the last time Bio extended or received a foreign head of state in Sierra leone?
He is behaving like those kids that are always in the neighbour’s house, but never have the neighbour’s kids around his den. Maybe his home is not fit for human habitation. That in the nutshell, is what Bio has managed to bring our country to. As his motorcade drove through Libreville, he would have noticed how the street are kept clean. 24 hours light, traffic lights working, not the traffic chaos we experience everyday around Cotton Tree, PZ, Mountain Court, Goderich Street. Foot traffic, cars, and the other mode of transport, the Keke drivers, driving without a care in the world for pedestrians or other road users. I hope Bio comes back from Gabon with a sense of shame and realises how he has let us down. Maybe he should have asked president Ali Bongo Ondimba, to spare us with some officials to teach our corrupt politicians one or two tricks how to love, and govern your country in the interest of the many and not the few.
If visiting successful economies is the magic trick to revamp a failing economy such as ours, one would have expect Sierra Leone’s economy to have improved drastically during the past years since the current man at state house has visited more than 50 successful economies around the globe since coming to power.
So unless someone point to me a single tangible beneficial outcome from the countless trips made by the president, I remain to be a skeptic to such wasted ventures.
As long as president bio is flying for the betterment of Sierra Leone,let him go ahead and fly