Friday last week was the tomorrow that we worried about so much on Thursday, when information started filtering in that Madam Thorpe will announce her historic results.
A lot of people who have been constantly objective about our political landscape might not so much expect people of their thinking to write about critical issues on the just-announced presidential elections.
But no, my brother and my sister, it will grind me inside if I do not comment on our political situation.
Yes, many people will prefer allowing people and things to chill, have some good reflection and then start up again. Like they say, when the lizard of the homestead fails to do the things for which his kind is known for, it will be mistaken for the lizard of the farmyard. But if I may ask, has the lizard of the farmyard no right to graduate into the lizard of the homestead?
I have a colleague who is wont to say, the monkey and the chimp may claim lineage, but the monkey remains monkey and the chimp, chimp.
Now let us get certain things clear. I was never born in the Western Area but spent all my youthful and latter years in Freetown, with the exception of ten years during which time I toiled elsewhere in the regions.
So, I have taken part in most of our country’s elections since I was 21 years. 21 years was the voting age before the 1991 constitution. Do you start to feel me? Yes you do. Sierra Leone is a youthful population. We are not like South Korea where people are allowed to go home early from work, so that they can make babies.
I am pretty sure that during the electioneering period, those who cared less about other people’s rights, heaped all forms of invectives on opponents, so much so, that we all seem terribly relieved that it is all over now and we can continue our lives. Already, people are complaining about unscrupulous market women, who have hiked their prices thereby causing further hardship on an already poverty- wrecked populace.
The economy has been a sore debate point perhaps throughout the first term of the president. There remains some controversy over whether the government performed in the area of the economy.
Another area is education. One texter to IRN on Saturday, said that the government should give priority to education especially as void votes came third in the elections result.
This is interesting because the main opposition thinks the government did not do much in the area of education that they did not build on the gains made by the former government.
Civil society sectors are asking for social cohesion which might prove difficult for diehard party fanatics and sycophants most of whom are never-do-wells whose only qualification could well be their loyalty to men in high places.
We need to strengthen the principles of accountability. There is no way we can build on the peace, if our justice system is not good enough. Just like an undemocratic party cannot produce good governance.
There was this Head of State who once went to London to attend a Dinner together with his Vice President. At the close of dinner, it was time for this Head of State to make a speech. Earlier, the Vice-President had stolen one of the golden spoons they had used at the dinner and put it in his coat pocket. His President had seen it all and was not happy about it because he himself had wanted to steal the spoon. So you know what the President took the occasion of making a speech to get it back at the Vice.
He said: Ladies and Gentlemen before I make my speech, I will play a short magic. Now, I am going to take one of these golden spoons and place it in my Coat pocket and it will be found in the pocket of my Vice President. He then took one spoon and put it in his pocket. He then asked a volunteer to check in the Vice President’s pocket, and there it was. Everybody clapped and laughed in amazement except the Vice-President who indeed lost his spoon having been outwitted by his President.
When they were going back to their hotel, the Vice expressed his concern over the embarrassment. His President, in a non-apologetic ton, retorted that his Vice should have waited to see if he the President was interested in stealing the spoon before he the Vice took the decision to steal it. Are you learning any lesson here?
There was this joke on the BBC some 30 years ago, of a Nigerian Minister of Education, who had stolen 300,000 votes to win a senate position. Later he became Federal minister of Education. In one year, there were massive malpractices at the public exams and the cases were brought before him.
He told the government that it was not morally right for him to preside over the expulsion of the students, since he himself had years back stolen votes in order to be a senator. He spoke his conscience, but did that make him an honest man? Hey do not answer, ponder on it in view of our socio-economic and political landscape. During the rebel war, rumors of the rebels destroying bridges here and there but most of them were untrue. Some 15 years on, the RUFP has beaten some other parties at the polls in good old Salone. Somebody once said that if you destroy a bridge, be sure you can swim. I listened to the President’s Speech at his swearing-in shortly after he was declared winner at the elections. His opening sentence was: “The people have spoken and their collective will prevails.” I dare ask, what is our collective will. I ask this question because as a nation, we are more divided on so many grounds that we need to work really hard to have a collective will.
As we congratulate the winner, let us remind him that until the gains in the GDP growth are translated into the GNP, we cannot say that we have taken off, let alone arrive.
The government owes it to the multitudes of our illiterate compatriots who suffered all sorts of embarrassment at the polling stations to vote him in.
This reminds me of the advice of two prominent civil society actors who were interviewed by IRN last Saturday who honestly laid bare the seamy side of the last five years of governance, after congratulating the President. For me I would like to reiterate to people who see investment in our mines as the way out for unemployment and poverty that our minerals played a major role in destabilizing our nation, and that it behoves our political class to have the right laws and policies that will ensure transparency and maximum utilization of the natural resources. People who have the capacity to properly handle the economy should be placed in the right places to do just that. Sometimes, the journey is as important as the destination. What is however worrying for us all is the fact that the ACC perception survey recently classed the Judiciary as the most corrupt! We can hardly sweep under the carpet the seeming ineptitude of this arm of government.
But before all that, keep food on the table like one of our Musical groups sing. The overarching objective of any development policy is the reduction of poverty reflected in the improvement of the livelihood of the ordinary citizens.
By Ben Cambayma
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