By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
At first, it was spewed out casually. Then it became a pattern. The pattern became a sort of template for acceptance into the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) inner circle. The template became a way for someone to cement their status in SLPP-dom. And now, the template appears to have formed part of the SLPP philosophy.
And the repeated vitriolic utterances uttered by the current SLPP National Chairman, Jimmy Batilo Songa, and the Public Relations Officer, Moses Mambu, are just part of that SLPP-ian philosophy which seems to have been first promoted by First Lady Fatima Bio who reportedly stated that: “Only SLPP supporters are true Sierra Leoneans.” Interpretatively, and in the lexicon of a typical SLPP stalwart, it might mean that members of the All People’s Congress (APC) are sub-Sierra Leoneans who should be treated like “okuru” dogs! But as George Orwell notes, “It’s frightful that people who are so ignorant have so much influence [in Sierra Leonean politics today]”. I can’t disagree with that because when one examines the nothingness in the idiotic “sound and fury” with which Batilo Songa and Moses Mambu always defy logic and intellectual decency, that Orwellian quote will be classically classic in Sierra Leone’s political context!
And while all those vitriolic utterances are being uttered on the national conscience by the high and mighty in SLPP-dom, the leadership of the Political Parties Regulation Commission (PPRC) is being frightened into a state of inertia. Even when such divisive utterances are foundations for future chasms and chaos, the PPRC is too timid to look at those SLPP-ian utterances let alone politely ask them to take back their insulting statements as it normally does to the APC with the alacrity of an altar boy dutifully doing the dirty works of the priest outside the Confessional Box!
What is now certain as certainty can be certain is the factual fact that there seems to be different laws for members of the SLPP and APC now in Sierra Leone. The PPRC, the Sierra Leone Police (SLP), the Office of National Security (ONS) and others appear to be showing some of us who “the true Sierra Leoneans” really are. And they seem to be also telling the “sub-Sierra Leoneans” (APC supporters and sympathisers) that the “true Sierra Leoneans” (SLPP supporters and sympathisers can even get away with murder while the “sub-Sierra Leoneans” can only scream blue murder about the murder!
So I’m surprised at those who are surprised at the Freudian slip made by President Julius Maada Bio recently in Mattru Jong, Bonthe District, in which he reportedly wished untimely deaths for APC members in that District. For me, I’m not surprised because old habits are hard to hide or die! Well, our Commander-in-Chief seems to have upped the diatribe: from “Ayampi” to “terrorists” (his infamous speech of 8 May 2020) and now to early deaths to those who are not “true Sierra Leoneans”. That seems to be typical Bio: when he appears to have been short of, or for, words; he finds an epithet or phrase that will not only energize his SLPP base but one that will be aligned with the newfound SLPP philosophy—denigration of the APC as a political party or its supporters and sympathisers as sub-Sierra Leoneans!
What President Bio said in Bonthe District, whether it was lost or found in translation, is suggestive of the inner workings of the minds of typical SLPP stalwarts. From that Freudian slip, one can now assume the psychology, philosophy, and logic behind the ruling SLPP’s “peacekeeping missions” in APC strongholds of Makeni, Lunsar, Mile-91, Tonko-Limba, and Tombo. One can also appreciate the seemingly diatribe with which the “selected” state security personnel carried out those “peacekeeping missions” in which they reportedly fired live bullets into dark places as if they were instructed to flush out “okuru” dogs from the gutters!
Despite the Bio-led government has been pretentiously putting up a feigned dovish posture; the utterances of most SLPP National Executive members and government ministers (including the flippant and childish Chief Minister, Dr David Moinina Sengeh) always show disrespect, arrogance, supremacist tendencies, and rudeness toward APC supporters and sympathisers. Apart from Batilo Songa and Moses Mambu’s vitriolic utterances which are now becoming habitually habitual; telling citizens that they are not Sierra Leoneans enough just because they are not members of the SLPP, and calling them “Ayampi” and “terrorists” are just some of the lowly lows of the Bio-led administration’s lows!
But what members of the Bio-led administration appear not to appreciate is the factual fact that no Sierra Leonean has monopoly over disrespect, arrogance, and rudeness. In my opinionated opinion, the manner in which some people talk and behave in public gives some insights into their fouled and depraved upbringing, their political incorrectness, and willful ignorance! As I see it, what most members of the ruling SLPP government are doing, at present, is to substitute competence and political correctness with reckless political bravado!
But a time will come when the peacocks will not be able to exhibit their feathers proudly anymore; when there will be no sands for the ostriches to bury their heads; when the eagles will not be able to soar like the lords of the skies, and a time when even the lions will not be able to roar like the kings of the jungle. And when that time comes; the SLPP will bleed and the APC will stab that wound and twist the dagger with sadistic relish!
And it is on that note that I will end today’s One Dropian dropping with the famous lines from the poem by the Jamaican-American writer, Claude Mckay, “If We Must Die”. Despite the seemingly state capture of almost all security institutions, good governance and electoral institutions in Sierra Leone; in 2028 members of the APC might “face the murderous cowardly pack” who might “press [them] to the wall”. Though they might be “dying”, yet, they might be “fighting back!”
medsankoh@yahoo.com/+232-76-611-986