By Prof. Jonathan Peters,USA.
It seems that many contributors to the online discussion forums abroad are in a state of stasis waiting for the
new president to announce his cabinet as if, somehow, everything has grounded to a halt in Sierra Leone or that
nothing can go on for Sierra Leoneans abroad without knowing the composition of the Koroma cabinet. Nothing
could be further from the truth for real truth seekers who want to do their share of contributions for the
presumptive new Sierra Leone.
Indisputably, Sierra Leoneans at home are in their characteristic way going about their business as if the
elections just concluded, instead of being epochal, were just one more series of incidents in their lives. As Sierra
Leoneans in-country go about their business and as Sierra Leonean pundits abroad wait (while engaging in their
jobs to sustain themselves in cash economies) journalists and network observers have begun speculating as to
who may be in the APC-PMDC coalition cabinet. Even before the elections were concluded, a rumor surfaced
supposedly put out by SLPP spinners that Charles Margai had agreed to join forces with the APC only if Ernest
Koroma would make him his Attorney-General and Minister of Justice.
Part of the discussion by counterspinners
was that the PMDC constitution or regulations pre-empted Margai from being a part of any
government that was not PMDC, a stipulation that has been difficult and indeed virtually impossible to confirm.
Since the waiting began, the name of eminent lawyer Blyden Jenkins-Johnston has received attention as a
possible chief justice to replace the current holder, Ade Renner-Thomas, or as Attorney-General and Minister of
Justice. Jenkins-Johnston has denied knowledge that he is being considered for anything. Most recently, a
number of people have been mentioned as members of the soon (how soon?) to be announced cabinet of
President Koroma including Zainab Bangura, currently serving with the UN in Liberia and a former presidential
candidate.
Before the blackout on information about the cabinet of the third presidential term of Sierra Leone’s Second
Republic which began in 1996, many commentators, this writer among them, were beginning to speculate about
what the entire presidential term would be about-whether it would be the new APC reverting to the ways of
the old APC, in other words, business as usual, or whether or not the teaming up with the PMDC would spell a
new and dynamic pathway towards progress and prosperity.
These discussions have added drama to the
successful blanket of information surrounding the twenty-something member cabinet (plus deputies for some
key ministries) that everyone is presumably waiting for before deciding on anything concerning Sierra Leone,
certainly in the realm of business. (It is a performance that successive US governments have been unable to
achieve early or late.) While the wait goes on, it is important to move from a waiting game to a dating game, if
only to pass the time away, namely the first 100 days of the Koroma term. (Sorry, no dating service
contemplated.)
In an interview with talk show host Assumpta Oturu on 23rd September, 2007, this writer set forward a shopping
list of items that President Koroma should tackle in his first 100 days. The following list of notes sums up the
topics aired (or intended for airing) in the discussion. (It is available at
http://kpfk.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2101&Itemid=135&lang=en
scroll down to 23 September, 1:01 p.m. PDT)
Get a truly national government based on equitable national distribution and expertise (and not simply
party affiliation) using Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad with focus on technocrats.
Strengthen the partnership with the PMDC.
Facilitate business legislation.
Reach out to Sierra Leoneans abroad to invest in their country.
Revamp the civil service to make it less susceptible to graft.
Put teeth in the anti-corruption commission as the president has said he will do.
Get a commission to look at land tenure laws that have skewed economic development (including
agriculture).
Help arrange an economic summit of Sierra Leoneans to get investment and to begin a blueprint for
development.
Focus on agriculture and in ways to support growing of rice to begin the process of net exporting instead
of wholesale importing
Get an Education Board that draws on expertise of Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad to get a
distance education software program developed for teaching more than half the population using the
OLPC concept
Work with incoming US Ambassador, June Carter Perry, Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad to get the
country’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) program under way.
Get a commission to look at and revise mining laws and encourage participation of Sierra Leonean
entrepreneurs in this subsector.
This ambitious list is revealing of the stakes that Sierra Leoneans are putting on change and progress for a
country that has seen so much underachievement in its history since political independence in 1961. It is not set
forth in any way as a blueprint or as activities to have been completed: others will come up with their own
agenda of to-do items. The intent here is for Sierra Leoneans who have the leisure to engage in thought,
discussion and even debate to adopt a dynamic attitude, not a wait-and-see attitude to the immense task of
nation building that has yet to begun in any systematic way in politically independent Sierra Leone.
The business of judging the performance of governments is an American tradition that goes back to the
Depression Era even though it became entrenched in political circles beginning with the inauguration of
President John F. Kennedy in 1961. One thing that can be said for this practice is that the choice of the number
of days is purely arbitrary. Kennedy became associated with the concept of the first 100 days not for promising
to do this or that within that time frame but from the opposite-for saying that he could not set such an agenda.
In the modest proposal of the dozen items to focus on provided above, President Koroma’s to-do list did not end
there. He was also to do the following, even though there was the acceptance that these other items would not
or could not be expected to be accomplished within that time frame.
a overhaul of the banking system; a mortgage system to facilitate home ownership, building of
infrastructure, including roads, telecom, electricity; sale of parastatals; etc., etc.
President Koroma himself has encouraged the spate of speculations with their etceteras as to what
should happen in his first 100 days when he reportedly said that “in his first 100 days in office he will focus on
fighting corruption, alleviating poverty as well as improving electricity, medical care and education” as reported by the
Concord Times newspaper. Gibril Koroma, editor and publisher of The Patriotic Vanguard, offered his own view: “If the
SLPP could get two honeymoons(1996 and 1998),” he said in the Sierra Leone Discussion Forum, “ I see no reason
why the APC should not get at least one honeymoon. We at the Vanguard will go easy on them during the first 100
days to give them chance to settle down and do what they are supposed to do.”
Writing in that paper (“APC
Rebounds: Is Ernest Bai Koroma an agent of change?” of 20 September), Paul Duwai Sowa was not so
generous in his observation:
"Question time has therefore begun and Sierra Leoneans should question President Koroma about his
first 100 days plan to deal with the acute social and economic problems in the country. Many political
pundits believe that the former government was voted out because it failed to deliver tangible results
for ordinary Sierra Leoneans. President Koroma should note with all seriousness that Sierra Leoneans
are impatient for action, and if he does not deliver tangible results within the first hundred days in
office, mass cynicism may set in and people may replace goodwill with skepticism about the nature of
his much touted reformist agenda."
In an article entitled “Washington Talk; Setting an Arbitrary Bar: 100 and Its Discontents” in the New
York Times of Saturday, April 28, 2001, Adam Clymer observed that the first 100 days of then new
President, George W. Bush, fell on a Sunday (the next day) and there was no fanfare of assessments on
the first 100 days.*
Then came 9/11, fewer than 150 more days and the Bush presidency became
defined for what it would be leading to and including the quagmire that it is now in in Iraq. How should
we calculate the first 100 days of President Ernest Koroma? Is it from 17 September, the day he was
sworn in, or 18 September, his first full day in office? If the former, then his first 100 days will end on
Tuesday, 25th December, Christmas Day and if the latter on Boxing Day (the day when gifts in the “old
country” of Britain where the holiday originated were exchanged in boxes) both of them holidays? Of
course, those who want to give the president every opportunity possible, considering the fact that he
still does not have a cabinet, would want to begin calculation from the date of his inauguration on 13th
October. If so, please remember President Kabbah’s arrogating to himself three months more in each of
his two terms.
Serious considerations of issues like these can serve to give the impression of weighty discussion as part
of an exercise in the dating game rather than the mesmerised passivity of the waiting game of the who’s
who in the first cabinet of this term of President Ernest Bai Koroma. Still, Day 18 looms in Sierra Leone
and the count goes on.
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