By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
The more I try to dissect President Julius Maada Bio’s character; the more I unearth the predictability of his unpredictability in terms of his leadership style.
Since 2018 to date, he appears to have anchored his stewardship on Matthew 26:31, Law 15 in Robert Greene’s “48 Laws of Power”, and Niccolò Machiavelli’s belief in his influential book, The Prince, that: “If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared”.
And the Scripture, according to Jesus Christ in John 10:35, cannot be broken. So, being a practicing Roman Catholic, President Bio seems to be in no hurry to break any Scripture in the Holy Bible. That’s why he appears to have anchored one of his pillars of statecraft on Matthew 26:31 which says: “strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered”.
That appears to have been President Bio’s obsession which his “men” preamble the “Report of the Governance Transition Team 2018” (known as the “GTT Report”). One of the key recommendations in that Report is the creation of “…a Judge-led Special Commission of Inquiry with a limited timeframe and mandate to recover all stolen or inappropriately converted state funds and other assets, including buildings, quarters, lands and the hundreds of vehicles still unaccounted for (presumably stolen by officials of the APC Government). The Commission should recommend [the] prosecution [of] former APC officials…[and it] should also seek an explanation from former officials, under Section 26 of the Anti-Corruption Act dealing with “unexplained wealth”, if it determines them to have accumulated such wealth during their time in public office….”
And ticking off the second box in their To-Do-List, the Commission of Inquiry (COI) was meant to go after the shepherds of the All People’s Congress (APC) who were [the] President, Vice Presidents, Ministers, Ministers of State, Deputy Ministers; Heads and Chairmen of Boards of Parastatals, Departments and Agencies within the periods from November 2007 to April 2018.”
In my opinionated opinion, the principal reason for the COI was to impoverish the APC leadership to the point of making them become property-less and mendicants. The ruling elite of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) might have reasoned that if the APC leadership didn’t have money in their pockets or being stashed in any local banks, and if most—if not all—of their assets were seized; they would not cause any trouble for the SLPP government. The essence of the COI was to decapitate the APC like striking a shepherd with the aim of making his sheep (the “grassroots”) directionless.
But even after the COI, President Bio and his “men” found out that the APC shepherds’ strengths of character were not broken. The APC leadership put up fights at the Court of Appeal to reclaim both their seized assets and characters which had been assassinated in the GTT Report and at the COI. In fact, the COI even energized the APC flock who treated the Bio administration like a dwarfish thief who was dressed in a stolen giant’s robe!
And realising that it was being treated like a dwarfish thief who was dressed in a stolen giant’s robe; the Bio administration activated Law 15 in Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power: “Crush your enemy totally”. Enter Dr Samura Kamara and former President Ernest Bai Koroma.
When it dawned on the Bio administration that Dr Samura Kamara would be the likely APC candidate for the 2023 Presidential Election, one of “The President’s Men” at the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC), Francis Ben Kaifala, organized a circus. And before one could say Jack Robinson; Dr Samura Kamara was in the dock, accused of a crime in which President Bio’s first Foreign Affairs Minister, Ali Kabba, should have been the principal accused person after it was allegedly revealed in court that he purportedly played “Mercury” with one million United States’ dollars meant for the renovation of Sierra Leone’s Chancery Building in New York.
And even before concluding the Chancery Building trial, the ACC has reportedly started another investigation in relation to “abuse of office” with regards to the alleged “sale” of Sierra Leone’s shares in Sierra Rutile with Dr Samura Kamara at the centre. The message President Bio and his “men” are sending to the APC is that if the APC nominates Dr Samura Kamara as its 2028 Presidential Candidate; there is the likelihood that a similar Chancery Building distractions and circuses will restart!
Now former President Ernest Bai Koroma (EBK) is in the dock—accused of treason, misprison of treason, and harboring. Even if ECOWAS (The Economic Community of West African States also known as CEDEAO in French and Portuguese) succeeds in brokering “peace” between the Sierra Leone Government and the ex-Head of State by dropping all charges against him; he will be in exile in Nigeria as a broken man. Here is a man who “has dedicated his time and energy in promoting peace, democratic good governance and smooth transitions across Africa” (according to an APC press release of 5 January 2024) facing such humiliations.
What is sadly sad about this entire EBK saga is the seemingly determination by the Bio administration to paint EBK and one of his daughters as monsters. The poignant fact is: while the former president is still trying to come to terms with the seemingly Machiavellian and Robert Greene-ian antics of the Frankenstein monster he created; his daughter is on a Sierra Leone Police “Wanted List” in connection with a “security breach” that was later upgraded to an “attempted coup”.
But as Shakespeare notes in As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage,/And all the men and women merely players;/They have their exits and their entrances…”; equally so, State House is a stage where every former Sierra Leonean Head of State had had their entries and exits. A time there was when Siaka Stevens played God and signed the death warrants of Taqi and others; a time there was when Joseph Saidu Momoh okayed the hanging by the neck of Gabriel Mohamed Tennyson (GMT) Kaikai and others at the Pademba Road Prison, and there was a time when Ahmed Tejan Kabbah ordered the execution of Corporal Gborie and others including a female (Major Kula Samba) in gangland style at Godrich!
Even former President Koroma had had his Zeus-like moments during his ten years’ reign. Citizens trembled and stammered in his presence; he had held the knife and yam (to paraphrase Achebe) to many destinies, and he had once been the be-all and end-all in Sierra Leone. But today he is in the dock—expected to fold his hands behind his back and answer “yes my Lord” to a Lord who was once a lesser mortal to him!
For the moment, President Bio appears to be enjoying the enjoyment of being able to play God. He might be relishing the fact that the current APC, as a political party, is powerlessly powerless simply because of the seemingly implementation of Matthew 26:31 and Law 15 in Robert Greene’s “48 Laws of Power”. But he should always think about this proverb: “A handshake doesn’t last forever.”
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