By Umaru Fofana
The 17th– 18thcentury monarch, Louis XIV, known as LOUIS THE GREAT ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715. His 72-year reign was the longest of any major monarch in European history and he was most famous for his saying “L’etat, c’est moi” which, loosely translated, means “I am the state”. Everything in France revolved around Louis Le Grand. Much as he can never be allowed to stay beyond early 2018, at the latest, there are concerning signs nevertheless that Sierra Leone is degenerating towards the path of absolutism, if not already, under President Ernest Bai Koroma and his henchmen and henchwomen.
Continuing from his predecessor, Louis XIV entrenched centralised state governance deeply influenced from and by his office. Through this he brought about an absolute monarchical rule in France. Clearly ours is not a monarchy, but the central command and control, with allegations of tax concessions and breaks for cronies of the inner circle, coupled with the demigod stature and status his dressers are making of our president, we may just well be tilting, perhaps drifting, closer than ever to that.
The French king made himself the personification of the state of France and asserted, in word and in action and through the utterances of his cronies, that he was the decision maker and he had total control. Essentially he was warning others, including even those within his government, to believe and acknowledge openly that he was the be-all and end-all of everything French and France.
It meant that in Louis’ France, the government was the king and the king was the government. None else! Not the nobility, not the clergy, and most of all not even the people had a say in what the law was and how it was to be enforced unless they kowtowed before him. It was exactly the opposite of the notion of democracy "of the people, for the people and by the people", which is the hallmark and fundamental of present day governance. Sierra Leone is on a slippery slope.
The demigod approach towards President Koroma has to stop, or we risk irreparably destroying the fabric of our country’s public institutions. The idea that the president can and must do anything and everything, including turning a man into a woman, is as destructive to the country as it is of the president, however well intentioned the head of state may be. Institutions must be left to handle things conscientiously
Everything in this country, especially in the last six years, has hovered round and revolved around the person and personality of Ernest Bai Koroma. It is calamitous. It is a precedence whose feasters will have to live to regret it with a future administration they will not be a part of.
I hate repeating the cliché attributed to US president Barrack Obama, during his Accra visit, that Africa does not need strong leaders but rather strong institutions. And if the institutions that are in dire need of strengthening are being further eroded and emasculated such as is being done in present day Sierra Leone, a tragedy of epic proportions beckons that will turn our leaders into tyrants and monsters under our watch.
It is laughable when government officials or their apologists say there is separation of powers in Sierra Leone when they know full well that the seat of power can instruct the police to arrest people for reasons ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous simply because they are tagged fifth columnists, and release those deemed pro-establishment. We have all seen this manifest itself in full public glare. An opposition Member of Parliament, Robin Fallay, was arrested for allegedly registering minors for the then pending November general elections in 2012 and charged to court. A few weeks later he declared for the governing party and the charges were dropped against him in a few hours.
A then opposition leader, Lansana Fadika was stabbed apparently by supporters of the governing APC party. The law enforcement agencies did not bother to bring the culprits to book. Not long after he crossed the carpet and declared for the ruling party. Then he was attacked apparently by opposition members and the police showed their might to get the alleged culprits like US Navy Seals went for Osama Bin Laden.
Following a string of attacks against the opposition headquarters, President Koroma set up a commission of enquiry headed by Sheares Moses. The commission reported back with their recommendations some of which were upheld by the government in its White Paper. One of those was the non-appointment to public office of a senior government official, Musa Tarawallie. Despite calls for common sense, the president has only kept elevating Tarawallie who is now in charge of the country’s lands and the environment.
An opposition member, Dr Abass Bundu has been standing trial for 18 months. Having appeared before a magistrate court for about a dozen times, not a single witness or evidence has been adduced against him. Last week there was a scare that he was dying. He was in a coma. The court refused to give him back his passport which had been withdrawn from him as he was deemed a flight risk. Despite calls that he be given back his passport so he could travel overseas for medical attention, his passport was never given to him. When his health deteriorated he was admitted to Choitram Hospital. It reportedly took President Koroma again to order that his passport be returned to him before that could be done.
Since Adam and Eve were kids, it has been a pattern for the state to be sending a certain number of people on pilgrimage to Mecca. As a Muslim I am opposed to this kind of use of state resources in the secular state that our country is. But that is for another day. What is for today is that clearly this has always been a political issue, but not at any time that I can remember as lately.
Just a few weeks ago, we were made to believe that it was President Koroma that paid for 149 people to perform the hajj totalling over US$ 600,000. But we also know that the state funded some pilgrims but that is lost in the deification of the president. Egypt and another Arab country also donated cash for such. Yet we hear nothing about that.
Interview any government minister, they will pay more attention to President Koroma than to what they do or intend to do. If a civil servant makes a statement at a public function or grants an interview to a journalist without profuse reference to President Koroma, many of them have told me, they are scolded by the line minister or some other political appointees on their return to the office. Simply put: this is the deification of a president who is as earthly and fallible as anyone else.
When street traders or bike riders are aggrieved over the implementation of a law the president took an oath to uphold, they run to State House to complain to him to bring down his might and stop the law enforcement agencies from carrying out their constitutional duty.
We may not have a Louis The Great in him, but the way things are doing Louis’ saying “L’etat, c’est moi” is gradually becoming true in today’s Sierra Leone.
(C) Politico 22/10/13
