By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
One thing President Julius Maada Bio appears to be good at is his knack for churning out what seems to be sexed-up statistics to make his seemingly failed administration looks like success wrapped in hard work and efficacy.
But whenever one takes a critical look at those statistics, one notices the typical Shakespearian sound and fury that signifies nothing. And it is that usual nothingness in most of his speeches, iced with statistics, that today’s One Dropian dropping will address, especially his Presidential Address delivered on Friday 7 August 2026 in the well of parliament “on the occasion of the state opening of the Fourth Session of the Sixth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone”.
Despite in his introduction President Bio promises that his address will be “a moment of national accountability: a time to examine progress honestly, [and] face unfinished work”; he appears to be trying to dress up a Kroo Bay pig in Buckingham Palace’s royal robes! The manner in which he seems to put different icings of half-truths on the cake of outright lies is insultingly insulting to majority of ordinary Sierra Leoneans whose lives he insinuates have improved through his administration’s policies! Take for example where he says, “We commissioned Sierra Leone’s first dedicated Burns Unit at [the] Connaught Hospital [in Freetown]….” In this case by using the first-person pronoun “we” (which he uses throughout his Address to indicate his government’s initiatives and successes); he gives the impression that it was his government that financed and built that Unit so the credit must be given to the Bio-led administration. But that is far from the truth, because that Unit was conceived, financed, built, and equipped by NP-Sierra Leone in collaboration with Leone Oil and they were only gracious enough to have allowed President Bio to commission it—probably sensing how desperate his administration is to have something positive on its political CV! That’s just one example of the many examples of the half-truths that are littering that Presidential Address.
Examining that Presidential Address of 7 August 2026 in its entirety, one will be forced to ask oneself these questions: is the Sierra Leone which President Bio paints so colorfully in words the same Sierra Leone I am really living in at present? Are the economic statistics which the Head of State reads out being “felt in food prices, reliable electricity and water [supplies], the quality of schools and clinics [and] the condition of roads” nationwide? Or is the President deliberately speaking with his tongue in his cheeks—believing that majority of ordinary Sierra Leoneans are so sheep-headed that they will not be able to see through his seemingly charade?
Although the Presidential Address appears to be data-driven, but when it comes to youth employment and the fight against corruption; President Bio becomes as vague as vagueness can be vague! Three years ago, his administration announced with fanfare through its Youth Employment Scheme that 500,000 new jobs would be created over five years. In relation to how many new jobs from that targeted 500,000 they have created; I was expecting him to produce figures as he does for the “over 18,000 nurses and midwives” registered in his administration’s digital systems. But here President Bio pretends as if he is trying to strangle himself with a roll of toilet roll and vaguely reports that, “Young Sierra Leoneans have since gained work experience in agriculture, construction, public works, community development, the environment, and digital services”. How many is the many? How many of these young Sierra Leoneans “gained work experience” in government institutions or the private sector? He doesn’t produce!
And his report on the fight against corruption is even vaguer than that of the promised 500,000 new jobs. In his four-paragraphed section on “Anti-corruption And Public Accountability”, I was expecting him to give statistics of how many cases the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has prosecuted, how many convictions secured, and how much recovered monies have been transferred to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. But he swims in the ocean of vagueness by saying that, “Every Leone protected from waste or theft can serve a classroom, clinic, road or community. No office, status or political affiliation will shield anyone from lawful scrutiny”. Here again President Bio virtually says nothing on the issue of corruption and accountability.
And nowhere does our Commander-in-Chief appear to be two-tongued than where he says, “Whatever our differences, we are Sierra Leoneans first”. Is this the same person who, on 8 May 2020, referred to members of the All People’s Congress (APC) as “terrorists”? Is this the same person whose wife is reported to have said that “only SLPP supporters are true Sierra Leoneans”? And is this the same President under whose watch the security forces undertook “peacekeeping operations” that went off-center in places like Tonko Limba, Lunsar, Makeni, Mile 91, and Tombo? In all of these instances, no apologies were offered and an inquest set up to provoke closures. Yet, in that Presidential Address of 7 August 2026, President Bio tries to ram down our throats the belief that, “Political disagreement is natural in a democracy”. But charity, they say, must begin in one’s own backyard! Since 2018 unto last Friday, President Bio and his SLPP government have treated every political disagreement as not only an act of questioning the legitimacy of his administration but an act of war! So, why should I believe the words of a naked man who is promising me designers’ clothes?
And I can also see that President Bio also tries to cash in on the discontinuance of the criminal proceedings against ex-President Ernest Bai Koroma which, he notes, “will help reduce political tensions [and] advance reconciliation [in Sierra Leone]”. Well from the Abuja grapevine, the concept for that “discontinuance” is said to have been written in a sort of Donald Trump-ian script! It’s been alleged that ECOWAS did some arm-twisting before President Bio allegedly realised that an old man has to accept the fact that some proverbs are sure to mention dry bones and sepulchers! So, some of us who had inkling to some of the inklings behind the “discontinuance” will not like to wake up sleeping dogs!
But what is more refreshing is the factual fact that President Bio appears to have reluctantly acknowledged that, “Former President Koroma remains part of our nation’s history, and [that] he will continue to support Sierra Leone’s peace, unity and democratic progress” when he is in his native land not as an exile in Nigeria. And what is frighteningly rejuvenating is when our Commander-in-Chief calls “on all sides to receive this development with maturity and embrace it as an opportunity for continued dialogue and national healing”. What is actually shocking here is the transformation of President Bio from a seemingly hawk to a meekly dove.
Finally, in the conclusion of that Presidential Address, President Bio plays Russian roulette and shoots himself in the temple when he notes that, “the test is not the plans we announce, but the results our people can see and feel”. Indeed, despite the pyramid of statistics which the Bio-led administration has been churning out year-in year-out; majority of ordinary Sierra Leoneans are yet to positively see and feel the results of those statistics!
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