Dr. Sama Banya
20 November 2012
A local proverb says: “yai nor dey tote lode but e know which wan heybee.” (The eye doesn’t do the lifting, but could tell whether a load is heavy.)
From Hamilton and beyond in the west of Freetown, from Calaba town and beyond in the east of the city, the people of this country left no one in doubt as to which way the political wind was blowing.
It was the same story from Kono, Kailahun, Kenema, Bo, Pujehun, Makeni and many other places.
The message was clear, from the turnout and the enthusiasm of Sierra Leoneans to move in the NEW DIRECTION – led by Retired Brigadier Julius Maada Bio, his running mate – Dr. Kadi Sesay and the executive of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP).
Although the incumbent President Ernest Bai Koroma and his APC, campaigned hard and drew crowds, it was obvious that those crowds were invariably made up of people who wanted to be seen, as well as by others who were often part of the head of state’s contingent.
We pointed out all along that many of those who organized the turnouts in such places like Kailahun, Segbwema, etc., were mostly conmen who are aware of the President’s dying ambition to hold on to the Presidency, was prepared and indeed spent billions of Leones in the process.
They exploited the situation for their own self benefit.
In spite of my repeated warnings that those men were deceiving him, the President continued to trust them – the Sahr Mokuwas, Maya Kaikais and other fraudsters.
In addition, he must have been naïve to believe that chiefs have any political influence on the political direction of their subjects; but either he would not listen or he had no alternatives.
In Kailahun district, in spite of the huge financial handouts, the APC won only one parliamentary and two local councils; that was the extent of their inroads in the southeast.
The same is true of the rest of the south and east, apart from Kono, which followed the northern and western area pattern.
We have been wounded before, but have decided not to take the APC’s bait of making the country UNGOVERNABLE as they had threatened in 2007.
The country had been brutally traumatized in the past and we did not want our people to go through that horrible experience a second time.
It is now very clear that the ruling APC are not interested in any such thing, other than to retain power. To them it would not matter whether the country experiences another terrible inferno, as long as Ernest Bai Koroma retains the Presidency.
Our leadership has called attention to many anomalies, which in our view would make any final result unacceptable, unless the NEC properly addresses them.
That is the bottom line.
No amount of provocative and inappropriate reference to ‘Ndorgboyosoi’ and other previous consequences of APC misrule, will lure us into any silly action or statement while we await NEC’s reaction.
How would any fair and level headed observer believe that the SLPP would receive single figure vote in any Electoral Ward in the Western Area?
We are not even going to be drawn into the electioneering activities of the mining and oil prospecting companies in the country, which have already compromised their positions, by openly aligning with the ruling party.
Like our Presidential candidate and the national executive have advised, our eyes are now on Christiana Thorpe, who has personally also compromised her impartiality during the entire exercise; that is, without taking into consideration her collusion with the APC leadership to rig the elections, long before campaigning commenced.
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