By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
In today’s One Dropian dropping, I won’t write about the alleged cocaine connections in the corridors of power and within President Julius Maada Bio’s nuclear family (According to the 7 February 2025 online edition of the Africa Confidential, Vol. 66-No.3). I won’t write about the chronic lack of electricity supply which is now part of the legacy of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). I won’t even write about the flippancy of the First Lady, Fatima Bio, who pokes her nose on issues which she seems to have the foggiest of ideas about or on matters which she appears to be ignorant of—always making our First Gentleman appears to look like a henpecked husband in the eyes of right-thinking Sierra Leoneans.
And I won’t write about the personified “dogs” in the Bio-led SLPP administration (courtesy of Fatima Bio) because the continuous fights and ribald barks among government ministers are testaments to that doggish description. I won’t write about the childish rants of the Chief Minister, Dr David Moinina Sengeh, because his seemingly childishness always comes out whenever he tries to be macho on national television or radio. I won’t write about the violence that has been persistently overshadowing the SLPP Lower Level Elections because the SLPP and elections violence are Siamese twins—and they will always be! And I won’t write about the seemingly messy succession issue in SLPPdom which will have far-reaching ramifications for Sierra Leone because the SLPP government of Bio appears to have taken the country from the gas chamber to the crematorium (You can read Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution” for ease of reference).
Even the recent shocking news about Sierra Leone being on the United States’ State Department’s “Draft List of Proposed Travel Ban Countries” under the subhead of “Orange: Visas Sharply Restricted”; I won’t write about because that is normally the reaction from, and by, United States’ administrations on countries suspected of either lacking democratic credentials or being run as narco-states with possibly money laundering activities.
So, in today’s One Dropian dropping, my focused focus will be on how the SLPP government of President Bio has turned failure into an art. Bio and his SLPP government have failed so much so that they have even failed in their failure! In fact, the British need to add a new synonym for failure in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary: Julius Maada Bio.
But the saddest thing about Sierra Leone’s sadness is that because President Bio and his SLPP government have transformed failure into an art, their supporters are seeing no flaws in their flawed administration. For most of them, if not all, failure has been so euphemized by members of the Bio administration that even their suffering is now being seen as divine fate!
Now, let me give you a quick synopsis of the failures of President Bio and his SLPP. They promised a “New Direction”; but the direction which they have taken Sierra Leone is an old rudderless one. They promised to block the financial “leakages”; but they have created “Samba Gutters” of wastages to the extent that even the National Revenue Authority (NRA) now looks like a fertile-barren woman. They promised to half presidential overseas travels; but presidential foreign trips have now quadrupled as if our Commander-in-Chief is a test pilot for Boeing airplanes. They promised good governance; but they have shown skillfulness in maladministration and bad governance. They promised to fight corruption; but grand corruption and what seems to be state-sponsored corrupt practice have blossomed under their watchful watch. They promised, first to create two million jobs and later half-a-million jobs; but massive unemployment is what they have doled out. And President Bio and his SLPP promised “quality” education; but substandard education is what they have facilitated to the extent that Bio and his minister are so ashamed of their educational system that they are now sending their children to expensive private schools.
What is shamefully shameful is the shamelessness with which President Bio and his SLPP always try to either justify or project their monumental failure. Common sense dictates that if one promises to achieve an objective or objectives at a projected timeframe and they fail; there is no way such a failure can be dressed in euphemisms—it is simply a failure! Even their “Tok En Do” mumbo-jumbo; they are now ashamed of parroting because of the dishonesty in that hollowness.
Success is not something that is dumb; it speaks for itself without even saying a word. If the education, which President Bio and his hangers-on have provided our children, is of the claimed high quality; it must be seen or felt in our graduates in the last five years. If their “Feed Salone” policy is not only a sound-bite; credible international data will not be classifying Sierra Leone as “one of the “hungriest nations” on earth. And if President Bio and his SLPP truly believe that they have done extremely well on the economy; ordinary citizens should be feeling such a success in their pockets or on their dining tables.
The factual fact is: President Bio and his SLPP have mastered the art of failure so much so that they appear to be employing lies, half-truths, misinformation, and disinformation to polish their art. But the truthful truth is: even if one pedicures a pig, complete with lipstick and queenly dress coupled with gold-plated Lady Gaga-like shoes and a Gucci hand bag; it will still be a pig! So, no matter what Bio and his SLPP do to dress their monumental failure; their failure has even failed their failure!
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