Author
By Amara Bangura
I was still a little boy in primary school in 1988. President Siaka Stevens had less than three years earlier handed over power to Brig Gen Joseph Saidu Momoh. It was President Momoh's first trip to my village. I disobeyed the orders of the head teacher, who was also my father, for pupils to assemble on the school grounds in Mapakie to welcome the new president.
Momoh was coming from Freetown to officially open a newly constructed hand pump in Mapakie, a tiny little village some 12 miles from the district headquarter town of Makeni. I escaped the welcome committee that day. Not because I wanted to disobey my father, but because I was critical of a leader who would have the nerves to travel in a long motorcade, driving past the thousands of pupils who had waited for hours in the hot burning sun.
I can still recall that Momoh and his convoy arrived in my village around midday and his Pajero vehicle engine did not stop running throughout the entire four hours he spent there. To keep it cool, yes, but also to waste the tax payers' money. This, apparently, was the start of a trend of an obsession for long convoys by Sierra Leonean leaders who, not for any reasons of security, seem to enjoy vehicles like kids would do toys. And it has never ebbed, let alone ended.
It so happened that Momoh’s presidential convoy grew at every gathering he attended, as did the daily subsistence allowance or per diem, and protruded stomachs of those who accompanied him on those trips. This continued until the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) seized power from Momoh in 1992.
Captain Valentine Strasser, the 27-year-old NPRC junta leader, overthrew the Momoh administration on April 29th 1992 after it had become irredeemably unpopular. As a young commissioned officer who had just returned from fighting a war with the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), Strasser came with little or no idea of how to run a country. But he clearly knew how to live the affluence of life even if at the expense of the masses. The pump and pageantry of a presidential motorcade needed no introduction. Within six months in office he used the few Leones the country had to order the most recent models of Mercedes Benz vehicles, along with Sport Utility Vans (SUVs) like PAJERO, for good measure. Sportages were later added on to the fleet. Within a short time in power, his convoy doubled that of the extravagant Joseph Momoh. In those dark Mercedes Benz vehicles with tinted glasses, senior officials would sit behind the driver with their eyes dropping morosely behind the shades of their Rayban sunglasses. Just like Momoh, Strasser and his escorts would leave the engines of their cars running for hours, even while they drank their nights away in popular bars. This excessive driving of an unnecessarily large fleet continued while the majority of Sierra Leoneans went to bed with empty stomachs.
Then came Julius Maada Bio who now happens to want to become president of Sierra Leone. The then general public perception was that Bio wanted to take it all, and so was not content with his second in command role and so undermined Strasser and overthrew him in a Palace Coup. Apparently fearing that Strasser's boys would have a go at him, Bio strengthened his security convoy far beyond that of Strasser’s, creating the largest presidential convey the country had ever seen. Bio would not hesitate to top the fuel tanks of over twenty vehicles just to spend a weekend in Bo.
I was in high school when elections were held and Bio handed over power to Ahmad Tejan Kabbah in 1996. Many Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad had high hopes for the new administration especially because the new man was a former U.N. diplomat. Sierra Leoneans were hoping that he had come with sufficient knowledge to restructure the collapsing country’s economy. But as if he did not want to be excluded from the list of those leaders basking in unnecessarily long convoys, he did not only increase the vehicles in his motorcade but also doubled the police patrol bikes with giant fuel tanks to escort him on every trip around the country.
Hotels in the provinces would be filled with ministers and other Government officials whenever Kabbah came to town, abandoning their work and using Government coupons to their tanks, chasing the president. Our economy continued to be ruined as DSA’s and fuel for those no-do-gooders were paid while the ordinary Sierra Leonean languished.
While Kabbah will always be remembered, and revered, for ending the country's brutal civil war, I doubt his flashy and lengthy convoys will be missed. As his tenure ended in 2007, elections were conducted which Ernest Bai Koroma won.
Throughout his campaign, Koroma had promised economic reform and job-creation. Sierra Leoneans were desperate for a change so they decided to part with the past at the polls.
During his inaugural speech at the National Stadium, before an expectant crowd who had gathered for hours in the blistering afternoon sun, Koroma called on Sierra Leoneans to change their attitudes, something he never clearly defined. Sadly, President Koroma was not planning to lead by example and abandon the exploitative tricks of his predecessors. This vague call for "attitudinal change" many now see as a mockery. Even when Koroma inherited a peaceful country he followed what is now a tradition by increasing his security convoy. From Hill Cot Road to Pademba Road down to Abacha Street and Kissy Road, pedestrians, commercial and private vehicles have to stop and wait at the corner if the president wants to pass with his long convoy to attend a weekend birthday party in some other frivolity in Makeni. Like others before him, that long motorcade of fully loaded fuel tanks bumps along the country's atrocious roads from money scooped from the consolidated revenue fund or foreign aid meant for the amelioration of the plight of his poor compatriots.
Koroma is still seen as popular in some parts of the country apparently because he likes smiling and waving to those poor bystanders. This seems pitiful when he’s throwing poverty, and dust, in the faces of the people he leads, as he speeds past them in his flashy cars and long motorcade. But Koroma needs to keep in mind that his call for attitudinal change has been heard by many Sierra Leoneans and he’s therefore expected to lead by example. Cutting down that long presidential motorcade to save huge amounts of taxpayers' money used on fuel and DSAs for the fulsome officials and drivers does not seem to be on the cards. The people who line the streets to greet his mammoth motorcade may just be smarter than he thinks them to be. They might be standing on the roadside clapping and waving, but they know how many thousands of kids could get good quality education and medical attention if his convoy weren’t so long. May our leaders shed off the obsession they seem to have for large convoys.
(C) Politico 28/11/13
