By Umaru Fofana
A few weeks ago I had a sit-down interview with the leader of the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party, Julius Maada Bio. It lasted for about 30 minutes despite the fact I was rushing to attend a national telecoms meeting with radio station managers on the way forward for a continued friendly working relationship between the spectrum-regulating body and radio stations. On the same day I was also leaving for the airport for an overseas trip. My busy schedule on that day, notwithstanding, I was interested in questioning the former military leader about a few things. Not a bad idea therefore to spend a bit more time with him. And he seemed interested too in continuing talking, on record. The nature of the interview meant that I was struck by two events that had happened years back, some several years.
Opposition leaders, I thought, often like endearing themselves to journalists. But more often than not when they get to power they get slippery and evasive. I was still in school then but I remember when he was running for president in 1996, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was quite approachable, not least by the media. Once he got elected I could count on my fingers interviews he granted especially to the local media. The obvious explanation could be that as opposition leader there are hardly any state matters to tend to. Certainly not too busy – real or phantom. As president, there is a deluge of them – real and phantom. That said, it is fair to say that as far as I can remember, Ernest Bai Koroma granted more interviews in his first four years as president than any other president before him.
But back to my interview with Bio…When I sat down with him I recalled my series of meetings – interviews mostly – with Ernest Bai Koroma before he became president. Some of them at Paladio restaurant in Freetown. Some others in other places. Most times on phone, from virtually all across the country.
As my interview with Bio wore on I relived those moments including getting Koroma’s reaction to almost anything I was reporting on that concerned the governance of the state of Sierra Leone. Sometimes, in recent times, I have wondered what the foolish furore would be if the need for that presented itself for me to be doing that. The reason I thought I had to do that with Koroma was largely because he was opposition leader both in and outside of Parliament.
But in my chat with Bio I also thought of events that had happened much earlier. January 18 1996. I was students’ union president of Fourah Bay College. On the 16 January there had been a palace coup that had shot Maada Bio to the leadership of the military junta. 17 January, I convened a general meeting of the students’ union body to respond to the takeover. I said, and the students agreed, that general elections must go on as planned – in February. Our position was made clear and public.
On the night of the 18 January, I sat with some students in front of Davidson Nicol Hall at Fourah Bay College watching television. Then word came through that a senior college staff member, Dr Paul Tengbeh, who was later appointed trade minister by Bio, was looking for me. He had been sent by the new junta leader to bring me to his residence. First reaction, “I am not going”. They might not like our position on their takeover. Also it was dark and I knew not where I was being taken. Then the students encouraged me to go since they knew who’d come to fetch me.
I have to admit that I only came to know Freetown on my way to the university in 1991. Born in Kono district I only knew the eastern district and the northern Bombali district where my parents had come from. And living in Calaba Town to achieve that university education meant that I did not know much, if any, of the west of Freetown. So I can still not recall where it was that I later emerged. But I have this nagging feeling it was somewhere in Wilberforce. It was an impressive building and I remember being taken to a part of the house that looked like a bunker. Certainly it was a minus ground level floor. There Bio sat clad in a military combat t-shirt and short. He looked quite baby-faced and affable. By the way I was not meeting him for the first time, as I will soon tell you. His face glowed. And his lips, apparently deliberately intermittently sucked in by him and released, shone with redness. As we started discussing national issues, his phone rang – a land phone. Then after saying “hello” he spoke in French. I was studying French at the university at the time and was quite impressed that he could speak it.
In the living room we sat and continued our conversation after his phone call. There I met the president of the Milton Margai College of Education at the time. In the ensuing discussion between Bio and me, I reiterated the position of the students’ union that I was leading, namely that elections must go on as planned. It would be dishonest if I said that I did not feel intimidated by the sheer presence of soldiers armed to the teeth who nibbled around the edges and the inside of the compound. But I mustered courage, as my dad would always advise me do in doing what is right.
But Bio remembered me quite well. He asked about my union and the challenges I was facing as leader. He was specific when he asked about our last meeting. That struck me. When he was Vice Chairman or deputy military head of state, my students’ union executive had paid a courtesy call on him. That must have been in 1995. And he was quite receptive.
Since that 18 January 1996 meeting I lost touch with Bio. But I continued resisting any attempts by his administration to prolong their stay in power. At a meeting of the National Union of Sierra Leonean Students (NUSS), I recall, vividly, some attempt by some student leaders to campaign for Peace Before Election, which was believed to be being perpetuated by the junta. My attempt at resisting this, as Vice President of NUSS, made me some enemies in students’ union leadership circles. Eventually some ganged up against my union and me. Interestingly however eventually conventional reasoning won the day. Elections-as-planned (I hated calling it Elections-Before-Peace) was carried to the subsequent Bintumani Conference 2 and endorsed by the masses.
Seeing Bio in that sit-in interview a few weeks ago he still looked young with the same baby face. Part of the interview which was actually his right to reply following a story I had done for the BBC that raised issues about his alleged overseas accounts and passport proceeds he allegedly siphoned into these accounts, went out on the BBC on the same day while the rest was published by this newspaper. I had waited for days to hear from him without success.
In my view his answers to my questions left me with the impression that, firstly, he has a few more clarifications to make about the issues surrounding his alleged siphoning into his private bank account of money generated from the sale of passports. But the interview also left me with an impression that he has matured over the years. Quite articulate. Quite affable. Quite spot-on. If he got a bit more truthful and honest than the average Sierra Leonean politician is, it could help his future political ambitions. And it would serve our country more than anyone can imagine if the media and the public concentrated on issue-based discourse around our elections as articulated by the presidential candidates and their parties, rather than the foolish things some sections of the media are busy putting out. They range from foolish tribal invectives being trumpeted by some of these journalists to unjustifiably insulting one presidential candidate or another and supporting lies being peddled by some shameless and spineless politicians whose only interest is raping the state of its resources to enrich themselves and impoverish the people.
I look forward to meeting President Ernest Bai Koroma soon, with whom I also have had some very interesting encounters – past and present. I will tell you more, when I do meet him.
