By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Sierra Leone is in trouble; a big one at that. But President Julius Maada Bio and his toadies are behaving like ostriches or trying to implement an ostrich policy. They know that they have yanked the tubes attached to the oxygen tank which has been the cardinal Paopa-ian support. But they are feigning macho bravado in the midst of their muffled angers and suppressed chagrins at the outgoing United States’ Ambassador’s home truths.
Now some of the President’s seemingly vociferous lieutenants are up in arms—albeit using euphemisms iced with paradoxical ironies! The Minister of Information and Civic Education, Chernor Bah (aka Cee-Bah), is, at present, being engaged in some pap-talks on national television and some radio stations as if he has just started learning how to talk. The current Chief Minister, David Moinina Sengeh, appears to be trying to strangle himself with reams of toilet rolls—giving me the impression that he might have been frequenting either “Pap Sam” or “Gun Boat” whilst he was a pupil at the Prince of Wales.
Common sense seems to have gone haywire in the current Bio-led administration. Intellectualism appears to be undergoing a sort of fitness test or in a state of willful comatose. And Diplomatic niceties have been flung and scattered in and around the corridors of power—creating a graphic picture of what William Golding presents in his 1954 novel: “Lord of the Flies”. The current situation in Sierra Leone could be aptly described as William Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” being performed in an asylum peopled by sane mad people!
Currently, The Comedy of Errors is being made more comical and error-ed when one hears apologists and supporters of the Bio-led administration using puns about “independence”, “sovereignty”, and “territorial integrity” of Sierra Leone. How can they spew out such mumbo-jumbos when the Bio-led administration has been depending on budgetary supports from foreign institutions and donor partners? How can they when our newfound “nationalistic” government has always been celebrating, with the typical Paopa-ian fanfare, whenever the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank dole out piecemeal or chicken-feed loans and grants to Sierra Leone? And how can apologists and supporters of the Bio-led administration parrot about “independence”, “sovereignty”, and “territorial integrity” when President Bio, himself, doesn’t believe in the independence and integrity of our local Judges and had to bring in Judges from Ghana and Nigeria to preside over his witch-hunting Commissions of Inquiry (COI)?
But in the midst of this current Paopa-ian comedy of errors; few government ministers have decided to leave the theatre and come outside where there are no mistaken identities and word play. One such minister is Sheku Ahmed Fantamadi Bangura, the Minister of Finance. On Monday 31 July 2023, during the presentation of the “Supplementary Government Budget” in the well of Parliament in Freetown, he confessed that the Sierra Leone economy continued to grapple with “…rising inflation, exchange rate depreciation, and higher debt levels”.
And while Chernor Bah and David Sengeh are trying to exhume and resuscitate neo-colonialism jargons as if they are unrepentant acolytes of Dr Kwame Nkrumah; Fantamadi Bangura is painting the true picture of the reality in Sierra Leone. He tells the world that, “the projected revenue for FY2024 is NLe21 billion, while expenditure and net lending are estimated to be NLe23.8 billion, resulting in a deficit of NLe2.8 billion.” Elsewhere we are being told that, “Sierra Leone recorded the highest fiscal deficit in West Africa from 7.3% in 2021 to 10.9% in 2022 with neighbouring Guinea standing out with the lowest fiscal deficit of 0.7% of GDP in 2022”!
And to compound the current bleak economic picture of Sierra Leone; the outgoing United States’ Ambassador in Sierra Leone, David Reimer, has warned that, “….We’ve raised concerns about the integrity and credibility of the [June 24] election results[ which brought President Bio back to State House for the second time]. This isn’t my personal opinion but rather the position of the United States Government…The [Millennium Challenge Corporation—MCC] Compact hasn’t been cancelled outright, but we’re slowing down…we’re taking a pause to see what the Government of Sierra Leone does next before we proceed….”
And while the United States and other donor countries or financial institutions are slowing down and taking pauses to see what the Bio-led administration will do next; Chernor Bah and David Sengeh have joined the small team of over-zealous cry-babies that has been childishly biting the fingers which have been finger-feeding Sierra Leone. And their older version, Dr Prince Harding, the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) chairman, has wrapped–up the Bio-led administration’s thinking on donor partners by calling them “intellectual dwarfs”!
But when Davidson Nicol is being financed and fed by Bailor Barry; the dwarfishness of the man with the stuffed wallet is more important than the giant-ness of the man with intellect. You cannot explain grammar, syntax, diction, or topic sentence to an empty stomach. All what an empty stomach is interested in is the stark illiterate person who can fill it to prevent it from getting an ulcer! So, Chernor Bah and David Sengeh should learn to recognize and respect those who are, at present, buttering or mayonnaise-ing and sausage-ing (remember Jacob Jusu Saffa aka JJ Blood?) Sierra Leone’s bread!
Realistically, the Minister of Finance has told us that the Emergency Cash Transfer programme of the Bio-led administration is being “…funded by the World Bank [and the] European Union…”, and that “the World Bank has also provided US$50 million under its Crisis Response Window to support short to medium term interventions [in Sierra Leone]”. Yet, David Sengeh is behaving like an ostrich—thinking that diplomacy and aids are like playing football “on stage” at the Prince of Wales (Those of us who attended that only “royal” school in Sierra Leone will now be giggling with graphic remembrance.). And I don’t know why he thinks the World Bank, the European Union, and Sierra Leone’s development partners (such as the United States of America and Britain) will not put their mouths where their funds and aids are.
When President Bio was thinking of forming a youthful cabinet, he never thought he would be creating a Sierra Leonean version of the theme in Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”. Or that he would be creating some of the scenarios in Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors”. What is now happening in Sierra Leone appears to be a mixture of Golding’s and Shakespeare’s.
But I can understand the youthful energy in some of President Bio’s enthusiastic lieutenants who are trying to prove some points beyond reasonable points. But, at times, some of their actions and words are childishly childish in their childishness!
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