“We shall overcome”

Dr. Sama Banya

31 October 2012

It is interesting the way nature behaves sometimes  Last Saturday, the opposition Sierra Leones Party (SLPP), held their second rally in Freetown, with the same mammoth crowd and carnival atmosphere.

It was indeed the very same day that his Excellency President Ernest Bai Koroma, left Freetown to launch his APC campaign in the Kailahun district, where his new convert to the ruling APC party – former SLPP Parliamentarian – Robin Faley, has assured him of winning four Parliamentary seats.

However I was flabbergasted to learn that the President and his 90 assorted vehicles, which had transported his mobile audience, left Kailahun town before eight o’clock on Sunday morning.

Now, why would honest Ernest pay such a flying visit to an area, which he believes to be the target of his political hunt?

I was told that the poor man was disappointed with the poor reception he was given, at which over 70 percent of the audience was made up of his imported supporters.

Someone confirmed to Puawui that his nephew – the president, was visibly angry as he boarded his vehicle.

Now why on earth did Maya Kaikai, Lamin Vonjo, Victor Sengu and the architect of the so-called planned APC victory in Kailahun – the arch propagandist – Sahr Mokuwaall collectively let the poor man down to that extent?

Over the last several years and intensified in the last three, that lot had persistently lied to President Koroma that the district was without any doubt his to win.

From time to time, Sahr Mokuwa would visit newspaper houses in the capital to report on the great work that he was doing with local groups, such as ‘the Friends of President Koroma’ – otherwise known as “the pa in yai”. And now this embarrassment?

I understand that Ernest was so disillusioned that, he refused to visit the Yenga area, which according to the president – his own efforts – and his alone, had liberated from the Guineans.

Readers may recall that this was the same Yenga that the media editor – David Tam-Baryoh, without the fear of God, had alleged that former President Tejan-Kabbah had sold to the Guinea authorities, in exchange for a future political asylum in Guinea.

Yenga, whose residents according to Mokuwa, had vowed to pray and vote for the hard working and world’s best President – Ernest Koroma, who because they had let him down so badly – had left his beloved Kailahun in a huff.

But photographs and newspaper stories have assured him that at least Robin Faley’s constituency 07 was his for the taking.

A popular proverb says “wey you blame dog, you for blame oodat gian bone.”
(When you blame the dog, you must also blame who gave him the bone.)

In his mad determination for a second term the President had turned a deaf ear even to honest Puawui, who had constantly reminded him that he was surrounded by conmen like Mokuwa, Maya Kaikai and Vonjo, who had travelled to the APC via SLPP, and PMDC.

Never mind dear nephew, you are assured of a generous pension in addition to whatever may have accrued to you, from running the country like a business.

In the meantime, the peoples’ preference – the young and charismatic Retired Julius Maada Bio, will be entering Kailahun today.

When will the propaganda team of this totally unreliable government, for truth sakes – change their behaviour?

First they hold a news conference at which they fabricate LIES about an SLPP arrest, detention and mistreatment of foreign journalists.

Now the office of the government spokesman comes out with a cock and bull story of an SLPP attack on APC members in Kono.

There is no mention of the fact that the APC had no business being out that day as the National Electoral Commission had assigned it to the SLPP.

Secondly there is no mention of the unprovoked attack on peaceful SLPP procession.

And by the way, where is the Inspector General of Police – Munu and his men in all of this?

Poor Salone, but in the words of Martin Luther King Jr: “we shall overcome.”