By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
It is Barack Obama, the former President of the United States of America, who notes in his book, “The Audacity of Hope”, that an argument of whether it is raining outside can be settled by stepping outside. So truly true in its trueness!
When you step outside and the rain slaps your forehead violently and you see the cats and dogs shivering uncontrollably from their wetness; it is definitely raining heavily. But if the sun shines on your face when you step outside and you have to make a visor with your hand; then it is sunny.
Equally so, if the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) believes it has administered Sierra Leone very well by upholding basic democratic principles and practices; that it has better the lot of majority of ordinary Sierra Leoneans through its implemented economic policies, and that it has upheld the dignity of Sierra Leoneans by not soiling the “rebranded” country through alleged associations with the narcotic trade and drug lords; then it should not be the one to breast-beat itself as ordinary Sierra Leoneans will see, feel, and taste the SLPP’s successes themselves!
And if the SLPP “Paopagandists” and “Drunkardnomists” are arguing that their government is one of the best things that have ever happened in, or for, Sierra Leone and Sierra Leoneans; then they should have nothing to fear of the would-be ballot box in 2028. The SLPP government’s record will be the judge or judgeless judge that will judge its stewardship at the end of its reign in 2028! As the One Dropian saying goes: A young healthy man will not feel ill at ease when coffins and graveyards are mentioned in an adage or adages!
But since 2018 to date, the SLPP and its Paopagandists and Drunkardnomists have been so unsurely unsure of their party’s stewardship that they have been consistently engaged in political trickeries that appear to make Niccolò Machiavelli’s influential book, “The Prince”, looks like a nursery rhyme handbook! The trickeries run like a marathon: The Cyber Security and Crime Act 2021; the would-be 2026 Population Census; the approval by the SLPP government to create two new districts—Bandajuma and Kpangoma; the proposed slicing of Freetown into two separate cities; the ramming of Edmond Sylvester Alpha as the Acting Chief Electoral Commissioner of the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) down the throats of the main opposition party, and now the Bill entitled “The Constitution of Sierra Leone (Amendment) Act 2025” are all aimed at stifling Freedom of Speech, gerrymandering, would-be elections rigging, and the suffocation of the democratic space to unlevel the political playing field!
And looking at the modus operandi of the SLPP and its Paopagandists and Drunkardnomists, one notices that they seem to have internalized three books: Machiavelli’s “The Prince”; Robert Greene’s “48 Laws of Power”, and Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” with sprinkles of Josef Stalin’s sadism! The SLPP government of President Julius Maada Bio has nothing to write home about, except to inhumanely dish out lies and half-truths that will even make Stalinist Pravda looks like a gospel torn from the Bible!
Few days ago, I had the misfortune of watching one Paopagandist, Moses Mambu, on one of the online television stations. The lies and half-truths which he spewed out were so shamelessly shameless that Adolf Hitler’s Minister for Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, would have looked more like a saintly saint when compared to the propagandistic thrash the SLPP Public Relations Officer was trying to spin! One thing I have noticed about him, like most—if not all Paopagandists—is that he comes out as a noisy empty-headed braggart whose demeanor and articulations always make “Dandogo” appears more brilliant when compared to Mr Mambu’s illogical illogicalities!
But bending logic and realistic realities until they are forced to wear a Paopa-ian necklace has always been the lot of the SLPP government. The Chief Minister, Dr David Moinina Sengeh whose mouth seems to run faster than his brain, and President Bio, who at times is even shocked at some of his own pronouncements on national TV and radio, appear to be very good at data-manipulation and sloganeering than good governance! But as I always One Drop-nize in my One Dropian droppings: no matter how best a pig is manicured and lipsticked coupled with a royal dress and Lady Gaga-like shoes; it will always be a pig with its piggishness!
And no matter the SLPP government’s data-manipulation and sloganeering, it is now a factual fact that the Bio-led administration has failed in its spectacular failure! So, if Dr Sengeh and President Bio are arguing that their government has improved the economic statuses of ordinary Sierra Leoneans, such improvements must be felt in the pockets and seen on the dining tables of the downtrodden! But churning out distorted data to portray the suffering and struggling masses as living in clover is not only dishonest but dishonestly dishonest—if I should put it in a more subtle disrobed phrase!
And the insulting insult which is insultingly insulting is the arrogance with which the Bio-led administration is trying to force an unpopular electoral system on majority of Sierra Leoneans. The Proportional Representation (PR) system, which was midwifed in 2022 and breastfed during the 2023 elections, has always taken the cardinal power of the electorates deciding who represents them and gives such a power to political parties that usually prepare lists of cronies and “strangers”. By pushing such an unrepresentative system down the throats of voters; the SLPP government is showing the disrespect it has for the electorates’ voices and choices! In short, the Bio-led administration is determined to take away the sovereignty of the people and give it to a handful of people at political parties’ headquarters.
With the Bill entitled “The Constitution of Sierra Leone (Amendment) Act, 2025”; SLPP government has decided to take multi-party democracy to the abattoir. And it is now left with the Sierra Leone House of Parliament to do the usually slaughtering, considering the painful fact that majority of the Paramount Chiefs in the House most of the time give State House-ian nods to pro-government Bills!
But the truthful truth is: the SLPP government knows that it is still on borrowed time which is why it is now taking actions that could be likened to the feeble kicks of a dying horse at an abattoir….
medsankoh@yahoo.com/+232-76-611-986