By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Anyway, last things first. Whilst I was in Form One (Mauve) at the Prince of Wales in Freetown, Dr Sama Banya aka “Puawui” had a son who was in Form Three. When I was promoted to Form Three (Crimson), he had another son, Sama Banya Jr., who was in Form One. And I recall that I was in the same Yellow House (Wilberforce) with one of the Banyas. So, technically, because I was in secondary school at the same time with two of his sons; I’m supposed to call him father.
But since Dr Sama Banya is now a nonagenarian (a person who is between 90 and 99 years old), he is supposed to be my grandfather. So, I will be very careful when addressing a “Puawui” (meaning “white hair”, or wisdom, in the Mende language) in this One Dropian dropping. Instead, I will just be plucking the few black hair on his head as a grandson is supposed to do to his grandfather to lull him to sleep.
Despite I’m not “a product of the famous Bo School”; I’m surprised that Dr Sama Banya is surprised at the surprising fact that I “write excellent grammatical prose…” (in his own words.) Well for a man, like me, who attended the London School of Journalism and did his MA in Mass Communications at the University of Leicester in Britain (which was named one of the world’s best universities in the 2021 Times Higher Education world rankings. And was so named by THE in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013); “Puawui” cannot expect me to write rotten, or WhatsAppian, English!
Now let me come to the crux of today’s One Dropian dropping. In his reply to my op-ed of last Thursday, titled “APC Is Pro-People; SLPP Is Anti-People”, Dr Sama Banya picks up the gauntlet in defence of the indefensible. He is particularly peeved at my assertion that if the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) is allowed to steer the nation for the next five years under President Julius Maada Bio; the country will become a complete failed state. And for this, he compares me to “a very thirsty individual who quenches his thirst with a solution of hot ‘kanya’ pepper”. He might be right. If the SLPP government has brought untold hardship and suffering to ordinary Sierra Leoneans due to its clueless policies; it will make me to develop a sore throat. And the logical thing to do, under such a circumstance, is to prepare a concoction of “kanya” pepper and “black dia mint” with hot water!
But the nonagenarian is not done yet. He evokes the figment of his fertile imagination and says “the SLPP is set to defeat the APC [All People’s Congress] in 2023 in the first round and with absolutely no runoff…” This is laughably laughable because President Bio, who barely defeated Dr Samura Kamara with less than two percent of the total votes cast after promising heaven on earth in 2018, has failed woefully to solve the basic bread and butter issues. His flagship anti-corruption fight has turned out to be one of the greatest hoaxes ever foisted on Sierra Leoneans. Instead of dueling corruption, the Bio administration has opened the “Samba Gutter” of corruption to the extent that the Office of the President stands accused of forging receipts in relation to one of the Head of State’s countless overseas adventures (courtesy of the 2020 Audit Report by Audit Service Sierra Leone). Yet, Dr Sama Banya is still keeping mum on such double standards on an issue that demands an iota of honesty from someone who spoke truth to power when the APC was in power.
Deep down his heart, Dr Sama Banya knows that President Bio is not the matador (the bull fighter as in the Spanish blood sport) his supporters think he would be once ensconced at State House. He has not provided the unifying leadership which majority of Sierra Leoneans had thought he would. The Commander-in-Chief appears to have implemented a sort of supremacist policy which is concretizing the One Tribe; One Region philosophy. But I can understand that when a child’s father is Ali Baba, s/he will never see anything wrong in the activities of the Forty Thieves! That’s exactly how people like “Puawui” and other “Paopaists” are.
And Dr Sama Banya cannot deny the undeniable fact that in the SLPP 2018 Manifesto, dubbed the “People’s Manifesto”, the then Mr Bio “promise[s] a New Direction for Sierra Leone as a united, peaceful, progressive, dynamic, confident, enterprising and happy nation where the people have unlimited access to jobs, food, education and health services and where there is equal justice and equal opportunity for all”. But if “Puawui” is honest with himself, he will shamefacedly accept that the Bio-led administration has not fulfilled an iota of that promise. And I don’t think majority of Sierra Leoneans would be as “simple-minded like the fishermen of Galilee” (to quote Chinua Achebe) to vote again someone who has proven to be a chronic promise-breaker.
Yet Dr Sama Banya who is “a product of the famous Bo School”, a school which believes that “Manners Maketh [a] Man”, cannot exhibit one of those “manners” that should have made him a mannish man: Honesty. If he can honestly give me five major campaign promises which the SLPP has completely fulfilled to the satisfaction of majority of Sierra Leoneans, then I will give him a ride in my eleven-year-old Toyota Camry now that the price of fuel “don turn boy pikin”(in the Krio colloquialism).
Dr Sama Banya should know that even if he lipsticks a pig from Kroo Bay and dresses it in a queenly frock coupled with Lady Gaga-like shoes; it will still be a pig from the slum. You cannot fatten the SLPP on market day and expect potential buyers not to see the signs of yesterday’s anemia. The point is: the SLPP is just a beautifully painted sepulcher! And the only thing which has been consistently constant about the SLPP government is its spewing of lies, half-truths, and the ostentatious vomit on the national conscience by its ruling elite.
And for Dr Sama Banya to state that the SLPP government has “…removed the General Service Tax or GST on essential commodities like rice and some building materials…” is what I will describe as hyperbolic humour! I think the last time “Puawui” bought building materials was when he was a senior cabinet Minister in the Siaka Stevens’ APC government. Because if he had built a four-by-four security post at his Freetown residence recently, he would have known that the cost of building materials “don turn boy pikin lek fuel”. And I think he might be ignorant of the price of a bag of rice simply because some of his successful children, or grandchildren, might be buying it for him every month from their pockets.
And finally, even when he was at “the famous Bo School”, Dr Sama Banya knew he would never have a complete high school education without doing his Sixth Form at the Prince of Wales. And, eventually whilst there, he might have imbibed real quality education which might be the reason for sending his two sons to the only royal school at Kingtom!
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