By Daniel Kargbo
Patriotism is one of the fundamental duties of every citizen in a country irrespective of the class of citizenship they hold. When one owes allegiance to a country, they are expected, at all cost, to be loyal to the same. Well, by this I mean ‘putting the country’s interest first’ should be the topmost priority of every citizen.
I have not read other countries’ constitutions yet, but I know that there is that section in every country’s constitution that prioritises the country’s interest over the interests of political parties. The Sierra Leone 1991 constitution does not stand out in that regard in my view.
More often than not we have heard politicians from the ruling as well as the opposition political parties avouching that they put the country’s interest over their political parties’ interests. But one would want to ask whether the 1991 constitution itself in the clause of Section 77/k has not breached the idea of putting the country’s interest first.
The irksome section reads: “A Member of Parliament shall vacate his seat in Parliament:…If he ceases to be a member of the political party of which he was a member at the time of his election to parliament and he so informs the Speaker or the Speaker is so informed by the Leader of that political party. “
In past and even in more recent times, we have heard politicians threatening their Members of Parliament with the afore quoted section when they have refused to abide by what the political parties decided – even when sometimes the parliamentarian is right and his view represent the national interest. Hon Tawa Conteh, Hon Sidi Tunis – both from the SLPP – and Hon Mohamed Bangura of the APC are three such MPs who have faced such a trial.
Early this year the former Leader of Government Business, Hon Sidi Tunis was made the Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament. For this reason, he was asked by the then chairman and leader of the SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) – Dr Prince Harding to vacate his position as the Leader of Government Business because, according to him, Hon Tunis would not be able to properly function in both positions at the same time.
The issue became the most talked-about at the time. In one of the phone interviews done by Radio Democracy Dr Prince Harding bluntly said that if Hon Tunis did not vacate his position as leader of Government Business he could use Section 77/k against him.
By avouching that statement, he literally meant that he would expel Hon Tunis from the party and duly inform parliament so that Hon Tunis would lose his seat as Member of Parliament.
The case of Dr Harding and Hon Tunis is one of the numerous cases where politicians have been threatening parliamentarians with removal from the House of Parliament when they refuse to jump on the bandwagon of their party.
Of course, some patriotic Sierra Leoneans who are concerned with the democratic processes have questioned the existence of this ‘unpatriotic’ section in our law book. Why should the constitution have such an archaic law which serves as a check on the genuine opinion of a parliamentarian who would want to kick against the partisan viewpoints of his political party and stand for the truth?
Conclusively, if Sierra Leone should move forward with modern democracy, Section 77/k, among other antidemocratic laws which are yet to be brought to the eyes of the public, should be omitted from the constitution.
Daniel Kargbo is a Mass Communications student at Fourah Bay College
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