Albert Momoh
Sierra Leone Telegraph: 4 December 2016
As the results of the crucial constituency elections come flying in, amidst a thickening cloud of ‘camp-ish’ recriminations, the rhetoric keep rocketing high where goodwill should have taken firmer grip and served as a safe landing platform to cool down frayed and jangled emotions.
I see no ‘winner’ here. I see no ‘wise heads’ either. And not even the shadow of ‘senior statesmen’ – retired or rehired. What I see is a ready-to-shoot collection of running mouths and stand-still brains.
What I see is a glaring absence of real political maturity and a gaping lack of astute leadership intervention skills that are needed to help smooth our way through this rapturous gladiatorial transitional phase to a General Election, where the declared “enemy” is the definite red-claded rogue.
In the ongoing unfortunate situation, everyone seems to be sinking lower into their rumbling foxholes, with all sides egging on by the fanatical self-belief that they are “the divinely decreed winner” of all manners of heavenly manna. Manna that can pour out only from their self elected gods of a paganised outfit, that has no link to the finer nuances of a democratic decorum.
None is wise enough to understand that beyond the cultist curves of this crudely crafted self interest, there are burning NATIONAL issues at stake. None brave enough to provide the gracious stretch of the arm that REAL WINNERS are always quick to extend to those they may perceive as “losers”.
Instead, there is a bizarre glorification of negative individualism that is singularly swinging wild to a grotesque rhythm of self-clap achievement that is head-butting blindly to the ultimate national political prize that is tantalisingly close, but yet so very far away.
Soiling the stage of this fractious contest is a childlike doubling down on the same petty positions that have always acted as “brakes” to reconciliation and progress.
This is leading to a further deepening of yesterday’s unhelpful divide, blazingly fuelled by “senior faction leaders” who seem to have sharpened their pens to produce phrases that cut others to the white of their marrows.
Welcome to “Pirate Island” where DEMOCRACY is weeping brown blood, from State House to the bonga blai market in southern Sulima, where you are no longer sure whether the green tree is pissing RED oil or coughing real blood.
At this trembling stage of our “Krootown Road Democracy”, there is no hold-back to the hell-bent barring of the ugly teeth of discontent and discord.
For the unholy “competition” to claw the Green Flag is about one thing only: who gores the boatmen and carves the biggest hole in the boat, ensuring that the boat stays on shore or dares the waves and sinks.
Suddenly, peace and unity have become sacrilegious swear words that are poised to wound where they may fail to kill.
As a proud member of the SLPP, I am furiously wracked by the disconcerting frivolities that abound on our public forums. There is a swelling trend of brazing negativity that should be acutely concerning to us all.
This internet ugliness is not new, but it is far too late in the overlapping electioneering calendar to
allow it to continue to define our general discourse. It certainly provides no advantage to anyone other than the mafia moulded APC and their thinly disguised surrogates.
Even as I try to walk my way to a hopeful place of sorts, two turbulent questions keep slapping me in the face:
As we approach the general elections, is our dangling inability to patch up our undeniable differences, knit our torn selves together and march on as one, a definite signal of a doomed end-result?
Is our reigning negative scenario the inevitable consequence of a current party leadership that lacks the brains or the will power to unite our party, or is the absence of positive tangible moves in a united direction a calculated strategy employed by people who know exactly what to do, but are deliberately stoking the embers to increase the fires because it serves their purpose to burn the barn?
Whatever the answers to these questions, one clear picture in our rotating frame is showing that a broken mirror can never throw up a beautiful reflection of the self. And in this extremely sad case, it is not just the mirror that is broken, but the subject being reflected seems to be battered beyond recognition.
Just mouth to yourself that chest-raising phrase of “one people one country” and tell me how much of that is truly reflective of our current reality.
To make our country whole again, we need to stitch up our party together and gear ourselves up for the real fight against the ravaging red rogues.
At the moment, all the bridges are up in flames and there are loud detonations where serenity would be key to ensuring sober reflections.
Time is running out. But there may still be time for some description of leadership that flies way beyond the fiery factional fray. Do we have enough patriots to recognise that this is that time?
One people, one country, too much sadness in a deepening sea of disunity.
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