By James Tamba Lebbie
When the former Campaign Coordinator of the ruling All People's Congress (APC) , Leonard Balogun Koroma went on air last week to say that the people of Sierra Leone should give President Ernest Bai Koroma the opportunity to run for a third term as president of Sierra Leone because he was “a transformational leader” that appears on the political stage once in every generation, I didn’t know how to react – to laugh or to cry. And I have tried to establish, without success, the basis for Balogun’s audacity to make such a brazen statement backed by an absurd argument.
Could it be that the former APC campaign coordinator is attempting to reposition himself to be more relevant within his party against the backdrop of his apparent confinement to the political wilderness just after the November 2012 polls? Or was he instructed by the party politburo to test the waters? Whatever the reason, the fact that the president has so far failed to make a counter public pronouncement on the issue has caused some consternation among some quarters, leading to questions about his democratic credentials.
In my view, this is a missed opportunity for the president to display his decisiveness as a true leader. And making such a statement by a party official just few weeks after the president returned from a visit to the White House in Washington DC on the invitation of President Barack Obama is a mockery of diplomacy. That invitation is said to be on the basis of President Koroma’s democratic record, yet he allows his apologists to defend him against what is beginning to look like an embarrassment.
The president should come out publicly and make his position clear, unequivocally, on a matter of such national importance. In my judgment, and I’m inclined to believe in the judgment of many political observers, President Koroma’s apparent refusal to make a public statement on the matter is sending the signal that he is either waiting to see how the debate snowballs with the view to judging people’s reaction before making a statement, or he is perhaps complicit in the seeming political conspiracy to change the country’s Constitution to serve his political greed. And with the nature and outcome of the just-concluded APC convention in Freetown - where the president was re-elected as party leader for a third term and that most of the positions were uncontested apparently because of pressure from the leader or the other candidates to give up their ambitions - there is no guarantee that such an anti-democratic virus would not be transmitted into the country’s governance system.
But this is not the president’s only missed opportunity to either assert himself as a true democrat who supports state institutions or as a leader for all Sierra Leoneans since he was first elected in 2007. For instance, earlier this year, he appointed Dr. Sylvia Blyden as his “special executive assistant”, an appointment that was widely believed to be ill-advised. And what most probably informed such a decision was the backdrop against which the appointment was made. Dr. Blyden has not only brought the name, character and family of the president into disrepute, but also that of the office of the president through her scathing and acidic criticisms. In addition, she has also consistently undermined the authority of the Independent Media Commission (IMC), a state institution from which the president has on some occasions sought redress against Dr. Blyden’s vitriolic attacks. Appointing such a person to such a position in State House perhaps sends a very wrong message about the president’s commitment or otherwise to the strengthening of state institutions.
Further, the president’s decision to retain Dr. Minkailu Bah as Minister of Education is another missed opportunity to rescue the country’s education sector from utter collapse. In the last five years, education in Sierra Leone has taken a nose-dive, plunged into oblivion under the watch of Dr. Bah. For over five years, he has spent hundreds of millions of Leones in his shambolic enterprise to weed out ghost teachers from the system. But like “Operation WID” in the city of Freetown, the whole project ended as a sham. Perhaps, the only thing the minister of education would be remembered for is the “6-3-4-4” legacy if at all that paradigm would survive or succeed.
In an attempt “to investigate and identify the poor performance of pupils in the 2008 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in Sierra Leone” the Gbamanja Commission of Inquiry was set up in 2009 by the president apparently on the advice of the minister. The Commission took into account “the role played by the school and home environments, the curriculum, teachers’ motivation, their attitudes and methodologies; pupils’ preparedness, and class sizes among other things; to ascertain the impact of the 6-3-3-4 education system on the performance of the pupils and how that compares with the experience of other countries that have adopted the same system; to investigate the reasons for indiscipline in secondary schools; and to recommend immediate, short, medium and long-term measures to improve and sustain pupils’ performance in the BECE and WASSC Examinations". At the end of the inquiry, the Commission recommended among other things that the duration of senior secondary school should be extended from three to four years. And this recommendation was without consideration for the economic and social consequences on both the parents and pupils, especially the girl-child. Only time will tell whether this new experiment would create the panacea so much needed for secondary education in the country. As for tertiary education, the less I make a comment on it the better.
In the area of social and political cohesion in the country, the president has again missed few opportunities to heal the ethnic and regional divides or at least narrow the country’s polarization. On the eve of the November 2012 polls, a partisan hack of the APC by the nickname of Coachie Mansaray went on radio to describe the Mendes, one of the largest ethnic groups in the country, as politically stupid. The basis for his derogatory remarks was that the Mendes are supporters of the opposition Sierra Leone People's Party instead of supporting the ruling APC and President Ernest Bai Koroma. In my view, the president’s failure to condemn publicly such reckless and offending statement against a major ethnic group at a time of intense political tension was a squandered opportunity.
Also, earlier in his presidency after the 2007 elections, the country, especially Freetown, was gripped by an unprecedented wave of political violence apparently rooted in a desire to seek revenge. The opposition SLPP headquarters, located some few meters away from police headquarters, were attacked allegedly by some overzealous ruling party hoodlums not less than three times in two months. The last violent attack on the opposition party office during which several opposition party women were allegedly raped and which also led to the closure of the political party radio stations in Freetown, took place in the absence of the president. The president eventually returned to a country that was characterized by fear, suspicion, and a loss of confidence in the country’s security service, especially the police. His response was to deliver a very partisan address to the nation instead of condemning the violence and holding people accountable for it and the wanton destruction of property as a way of conveying to the nation that he is president of and for all Sierra Leoneans and not just his party supporters.
These and other instances are enough examples to illustrate President Koroma’s missed opportunities as a president whose rhetoric of good governance and socio-political cohesion runs counter to his actions or inactions.
