By Kabs Kanu
Make no mistake about It, Sierra Leoneans are very angry with the government, amidst deteriorating living conditions and excruciating suffering in their country.
One only needs to listen to the many audios trending on social media or sit among Sierra Leoneans during social functions to realize the enormity of the predicament presenting eating out the heart of our
Nation: People are too angry with the Paopa SLPP Government led by Retired Brigadier, Julius Maada Bio.
The government and its supporting may be underplaying the seriousness of the situation, which is dangerous place for a government to wallow. The Government’s complacency and lack of care may yet be to its own detriment.
Sierra Leoneans are very angry because of the runaway inflation that has sent prices of food and all basic commodities and services through the roof, with the government doing nothing to arrest these desperate problems besetting the nation. A common bag of rice is heading for one million leones a bag. Prices of fuel, electricity, transportation, clothing, water etc have ballooned before the incredulous eyes of the poor man and woman during the incumbency of this government.
Sierra Leoneans are very angry because the SLPP government has nothing like price control in their governance mantra. Prices of food, commodities and services have continued escalating so painfully during the past three years, especially , that breadwinners have to perform magic of some sort every day to provide just one meal for their families. Eating under the SLPP government has become a priviledge in Sierra Leone. The biggest complaint everywhere, at home (According to newspapers and call-in radio and TV shows) and in the diaspora (According to social media audios) is how much President Bio has failed the nation. Bio, they complain, has forgotten all the promises he made to the Sierra Leonean people while seeking election in 2018.
What is also annoying Sierra Leoneans, according to their rants in talk shows and social media audios is the impunity and the reckless abandon with which Bio and his government treat the people in the face of their suffering. President Bio does not care and explains nothing to the people.
Sierra Leoneans do not know where the President and his supporters got the reckless bravado and overconfidence that they exude every day, especially on social media where all Paopa supporters do is gloat about power and the sins of the government, threaten, insult and denigrate those who dare to speak against the nasty, brutish and doggishly hard economic times in the country. Nothing is more irritating to the people than when these brainless SLPP people try to justify themselves by equating the suffering in the country with what transpired during the Siaka Stevens APC era( when suffering was not as acute as it is today, when nobody bought a bag of rice close to one million leones !!! ).
What also annoys people most is how the SLPP government refuses to think that it is not the APC that are in power or are accountable to the people presently for the problems in the country? It is SLPP time and SLPP are responsible for the problems, not past APC governments. Maada Bio has had about six
Years to make a difference but he has not. Rather, he is turning out to be the worst nightmare of a president this nation has had since Independence.
It is so annoying when, instead of addressing the problems, the SLPP tries to project by taking people’s minds back to APC rule. It is a mark of imbecility, poverty of rational reasoning, clueless governance, incompetence and lack of the moral will to serve the interest of the people.
A woman on WhatsApp was apoplectic with anger damning the government for its insensitivity to the people’ suffering. She said that the SLPP has harmed Sierra Leone irreparably worse than any other government has ever done and instead of solving the problems, Maada Bio has performed the worst crimes by also destroying every governance, social, economic, integrity and security institution in the country. Bio has destroyed Parliament, the judiciary, civil society, the military, the police and even the media, using tribalism and ethnicity as the centerpiece of his influence- peddling,selling of the people’s interest to establish a grip over and control of these institutions. Almost all of these institutions are now controlled, by one ethnic group— President Bio’s.
The other worse thing being done by Bio and supporters is downplaying and underrating the palpable anger of the Sierra Leonean people. It is a very dangerous thing to do but Bio and his supporters think they have ethnically set up structures to ensure that nobody rises up successfully against the SLPP Government. There are audios and videos on social media showing SLPP ministers, officials and supporters bragging that because they have now brought the army and police completely under their control, people daring to rise up against the government will only be inviting sorrow and mourning for their families. And indeed, this is what is happening now. Dissent against the SLPP Government warrants death in Sierra Leone.
But now, it is interesting that the bitter complaints and anger are coming not only from the Government’s opponents. Southeasterners and SLPP supporters are now producing audios and videos to blast President Bio for failing even his base. One SLPP Bio supporter from Bonthe produced a video bitterly complaining about how President Bio has put his people to shame by failing to deliver on his promises to construct the dangerous road from Bo to his home district of Bonthe. The road is a traveling hazard and a death trap with vehicles trapped in thick rivers of mud during the rainy season.
Another man in Bonthe produced a video showing a poor, hapless old woman walking in knee-high streams of water with a big pan of produce on her head, navigating her way home from her farm.His supporters are asking: If the president does not care for his own people, who will he care for?
TO BE CONTINUED: SEE PART 2 DURING THE WEEK.
