By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
First things first. I never thought of writing a sequel to my One Dropian dropping of 23 January 2024 titled, “Moral Bankruptcy Contest: Abass Bundu Vs. Paran Tarawallie”. But Dr Abass Chernor Bundu’s address to “Honourable Members” last Thursday in the Well of Parliament, in which he explained “Parliament’s position to the nation”, has provokingly provoked today’s One Dropian dropping.
In his address on Thursday 25 January 2024 the Rt. Hon. Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Dr Abass Chernor Bundu, picked several bones with the mainstream and social media for what he supposedly posted on social media and also what the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) fed the mainstream media with in relation to what appears to be a “cold war” between him and the Clerk of Parliament, Hon. Umar Paran Tarawallie.
For starters, a social media blogger in a viral audio accuses Dr Abass Bundu of alleged sexual harassments of some female parliamentary staff and Members of Parliament while on official duties in and outside Sierra Leone. In reply to that and that of alleged grand corruption in the House, the Speaker of Parliament had reportedly noted that, “You cannot use the argument of morality to undercut the law when evidence abounds that legal abuse of office, conflict of interest, embezzlement, and corruption is rupturing the administration of Parliament”.
From that statement, above, attributed to Dr Abass Bundu; two facts are established. First, the Speaker of Parliament stands accused of alleged immorality in the way and manner in which he conducts himself inside and outside the House of Parliament. Second, the Clerk of Parliament who is the administrative head is “rupturing” that vital section of the House with allegations of “abuse of office, conflict of interest, embezzlement, and corruption” for which he is now being investigated by the ACC. And the undercurrent in all of this is the seemingly “cold war” between the Speaker and the Clerk!
Now coming to last Thursday’s address to “Honourable Members” of Parliament, Dr Abass Bundu makes a Freudian slip when he acknowledges “…a lapse in the dignity and decorum of Parliament”. And for that, he seems honest enough to have asked all MPs present that day that they “should all apologise to the people of [Sierra Leone] whose trust and confidence we bear and on whose behalf we act in this Well as their representatives…we want to take this opportunity to express our collective regret and to ask for their forgiveness; we promise that we shall never again commit the grievous mistakes of the recent past”.
But while Mr Speaker appears to be showing collective remorse and making collective promise to “never again commit the grievous mistakes of the recent past” in one breath; in the same breath he appears to be dishonestly dishonest by engaging in what the British media will call “non-denial denial”. He is not denying the fact that the accusations against him and the Clerk are indicative of “a lapse in the dignity and decorum of Parliament”; yet he is also trying to deny some of the accusations by stating that, “a great deal of what has been said and written has been either misconceived or misunderstood.”
Well, let’s forget about the “great deal”; what about the small deal which has already been said and written that is either not “misconceived or misunderstood”? Can Mr Speaker tell us some of the spicy details in those allegations which might have some elements of truth? He has already whetted our appetites by stating that he is now “a frail and faint shadow of his once youthful masculinity.” But what if that “youthful masculinity” playfully decides to resurface in the chambers of “a frail” Speaker who doesn’t need to “attempt any act of bravado” to activate seduction but muffled words, eye contacts, or jokingly caressing of enticing buttocks without consent?
Mr Speaker’s insinuation that because he is “a frail and faint shadow of his once youthful masculinity”, so he cannot engage in any form of sexual harassment, appears to be fallaciously fallacious. Should I educate him that Jeffrey Edward Epstein, the American sex offender, was “a frail and faint shadow of his once youthful masculinity” at the time he was arrested, tried, and convicted for several sex offences? The point is: sexual harassments could take place without a man attempting “any act of bravado”!
Another bone which Dr Abass Bundu picks with the media and which I also want to pick with him is where he notes that, “let it be stated here loud and clear that the Speaker and the Clerk of Parliament are not at loggerheads with each other, as some unscrupulous and frivolous media might want you to believe”. Here again, he is trying to engage in “non-denial denial”. According to a social media post, ascribed to him, he appears to have said that the allegations of sexual harassment against him are to divert public attention from the grave allegations against the Clerk of Parliament and his wife. So, those of us who are not dead to the King’s Language (Well, since the Queen of Britain is now dead; I will have to One Drop-nize that clichéd cliché with my own cliché.) will decode from that statement that there is no love lost between him and the Clerk of Parliament.
But again, if I should try to be playfully playful; I would have wondered if Dr Abass Bundu could use such indicting adjectives against the Clerk when they are actually friendly friends (as he insinuates); what epithets would he have used if they are really at loggerheads with each other? I suspect he would have ‘Adebayor-nized’ (another One Dropian coinage) instead of allegedly using phrases like “legal abuse of office”, “conflict of interest”, “embezzlement, and corruption” which he reportedly said are “rupturing the administration of Parliament” of which his good friend with “youthful masculinity” is the Clerk!
Even Dr Abass Bundu’s attempt at giving us a crash course on the different roles of the Speaker and the Clerk of Parliament is laughably laughable. It is, simply because even sheep-headed Secondary School pupils, who are now reading “Government” as a subject for their West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), know that elementary stuff already. And his attempt also at accusing the media of attempting “to build mountains out of a molehill”, in relation to those grave allegations against him and the Clerk of Parliament, Hon. Umar Paran Tarawallie, could be described as the last epileptic jerks of a dying horse!
What the Rt. Hon. Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Dr Abass Chernor Bundu, should know is the factual fact that if those frequenting the Parliamentary Press Gallery have not seen an ember, they would never have fanned it to rekindle a fire! So, whatever euphemisms he wants to use to clad “loggerheads” and “…a lapse in the dignity and decorum of Parliament”; he should be reminded of Shakespeare’s “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” (Romeo and Juliet).
But whether the media are accused of unscrupulousness, frivolousness, and of building Bintumani Mountain out of Tower Hill or not; the fact still remains that those grave allegations against the Speaker and the Clerk of Parliament are shamefully shameful in their shamefulness!
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