By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Let’s start with justice for all Sierra Leoneans before the law and equality of every Sierra Leonean in the eyes of all functionaries of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP); then sustainable peace will oil the now immovable wheels of national cohesion.
Even if the government of President Julius Maada Bio transform the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into the Gestapo of Nazi Germany by inviting critical and dissenting voices on social media for “cyber-stalking” of top SLPP government officials and their goons, even if the SLPP government convert state security personnel to the dead squads in El Salvador of old, and even if President Bio makes true of his infamous threat of using “bullets for bullets” against unforeseen would-be enemies; Sierra Leone may not have sustainable peace if the issues of justice and equality are not addressed with sincerity.
Peace and national cohesion are not concepts you ram down the throats of your compatriots you always regard as trouble makers that are flinging spanners in the works of the government. They are not ideas that you try to achieve through state capture. They are not even political thoughts that should be enforced through threats of causing bodily harm to that section of the society which demands probity and accountability from the ruling elites. But peace and national cohesion are always the by-products of mutual respect and the realisation among citizens from different political leanings and tribes that what is good for mother cow must not give the heifer a running stomach!
As I see it, what has caused, and still causing, the instability in Sierra Leone is the seemingly tongue in cheek manner in which President Bio and some senior members in his government and party are approaching the concepts of peace and national cohesion. You cannot be threatening to “deal” with citizens heavy-handedly, whenever they try to assert their Sierra Leone-ness and demand justice and equality, and at the same time you want them to turn the other cheek and “not stick up a finger in an obscene, defiant gesture” (to quote Wole Soyinka).
In one breath, President Bio will, through innuendoes, be referring to members of the All People’s Congress (APC) as “terrorists” (his speech of 8 May 2020) while in another breath he will be telling the nation in a broadcast that: “Our journey towards a united and cohesive Sierra Leone is not just a vision; it is a shared mission that includes everyone. Your role as citizens is integral to this mission, and your contributions are deeply valued” (his “National Address” of 14 June 2024). To me, this is a typical example of the enactment of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde double-persona scenario. Does our Commander-in-Chief truly believe that these same terrorists’ contributions to national dialogues “are deeply valued” in our collective “journey towards a united and cohesive Sierra Leone”?
And to add “pepe wata” to the fresh wounds, Dr Prince Harding, the SLPP Chairman, believes that all members of the APC are “mad people” so his party will never think of handing over political power to them! He made this known at an SLPP meeting in which President Bio was present. Instead of the Head of State reprimanding him instantly for such denigrating phrase; he acquiesced with a straight face. To me, this epithet appears to be the collective thinking of SLPP-dom. And when you blend “terrorists” with “mad people”; you get the impression of why the SLPP government is behaving the way it is behaving to those outside SLPP-dom!
Those are just a handful from the bagful of examples to show that the SLPP government and most of its senior functionaries do not seem to value the values of mutual respect and tolerance. Even some content analyses of the tweets of Dr David Sengeh could indicate the innate contempt which most senior members of the Bio-led administration appear to have for their APC counterparts. Most of his tweets seem to be full of undertones which paint APC members as either fools or sub-Sierra Leoneans whose concerns must be ignored or shelved.
One of the reasons why sustainable peace is currently elusive in Sierra Leone is because the Bio-led administration has repeatedly been refusing to establish the truths about certain “wrongs” which were meted out on some citizens in certain regions of the country. Instead, whenever those citizens ask for closures on those wrongful wrongs; their queries are always answered with a fog of lies!
That’s why, in many of my recent One Dropian droppings, I have been quoting Soyinka’s “The Man Died” that, “Even in totalitarian states, the time comes when past ‘errors’ [or wrongs] are admitted, high-placed criminals unmasked and victims rehabilitated…!” We cannot, as a nation, seek sustainable peace when the victims of the “peacekeeping missions” sent by the Bio-led SLPP government to places like Makeni; Lunsar; Mile-91; Tonko Limba, and Tombo to maintain peace and security are still aggrieved that the “wrongs” meted out on them during those “peacekeeping missions” are still unresolved!
From the Abidjan Peace Accord of 30 November 1996 to the Conakry Peace Agreement of 23 October 1997 to the Lomé Peace Accord of 7 July 1999 to the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in July 2002 unto the establishment of the Special Court for Sierra Leone on 16 January 2002; Sierra Leone has sought peace yet it has still not got the permanent peace it seeks. In my opinion, the main reason why sustainable peace is still elusive in the country is because successive governments had initiated peace and reconciliation processes half-heartedly with regional, tribal, and partisan interests in the subplots!
The wrongful wrongs wronged hundreds of thousands of citizens, especially in opposition strongholds, are usually watered-down or whitewashed simply because righting them might offend the political incorrectness of the government of the day! And in all, or most, of these peace and reconciliation processes, the issue of comprehensive implementation of justice in its basic form was always sacrificed on the altar of political convenience!
Now Sierra Leone, as a nation, has come full circle. We are still seeking the same sustainable peace we sought in the Abidjan Peace Accord, the Conakry Peace Agreement, the Lomé Peace Accord, the TRC, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Now, despite several “peacekeeping missions” sent by the Bio-led SLPP government to supposed trouble-causing areas in the country; we are still struggling to have a semblance of sustainable peace even with the so-called “Agreement for National Unity” which later fathered the now clichéd “Tripartite Committee”.
What Sierra Leone needs now are legal justice, social justice, and political justice for the elusive peace to be trapped and sustained. Any peace initiative short of that will produce the seemingly circus which the Bio-led administration appears to be organizing now for its amusement!
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