Berewa is no Yar’Adua

By Jimmy D.Kandeh,USA.

Fraudulent elections in Nigeria have given rise to fears and speculation that the incumbent SLPP leadership will try to duplicate Nigeria’s farce in Sierra Leone. While these fears are not unfounded, especially in light of substantiated reports alleging voter registration fraud by SLPP partisans, what happened in Nigeria is unlikely to be repeated in Sierra Leone for the following reasons:

First, and perhaps most important, is the fact that Berewa is no Yar’Adua. No one, including members of the opposition, ever accused Yar’Adua of corruption. As Governor of Katsina, he remained untainted by allegations and perceptions of corruption involving ruling elements - even Obasanjo is widely seen as corrupt whereas Yar’Adua does not suffer from the same stigma. He is a humble, albeit taciturn, leader who does not come across as the kind of man who will allow his interests to take precedence over national (foreign policy) and public (domestic policy) interests. He is not predisposed to loot his country’s patrimony (that is not to say he can control the vultures in his party) and Nigerians may be grudgingly acquiescing to his rule precisely because of some of these reasons. Atiku Abubakar, a corrupt politician, and Muhhamadu Buhari, a former tyrant, were not particularly attractive alternatives to Yar’Adua.

Now compare Yar’Adua to Berewa, a man whose name has become synonymous with all that is rotten and corrupt in post-war Sierra Leone. Obasanjo was smarter and more patriotic than Kabbah in this regard - both men set-out to hand-pick their successors but unlike Obasanjo who selected someone untainted by corruption, Kabbah chose his lead poodle to be the next Commander-in-Thief and is about to add his favorite fawning lap dog to an unelectable ticket. The outcome of fraudulent elections are more likely to hold in situations where the declared winner is unsullied by corruption, or is regarded as far less corrupt than his opponents, than in cases where the declared winner is a poster child for a corrupt and decadent system.

Second, Nigeria’s strategic importance as Africa’s most populous state and a major producer of oil has a constraining effect on the external estate when it comes to issues involving penalties and sanctions. The Nigerian government, after all, paid for its country’s elections. Given Nigeria’s greater strategic value and in the absence of any widespread domestic outcry over the outcome of the recent elections, the international community had very few options in terms of how to respond to Nigeria’s fraudulent elections. That certainly will not be the case in Sierra Leone, where only a non-fraudulent outcome can and will stand.

Sierra Leone is on international dole, a degrading status the SLPP government has been exploiting for the benefit of its leaders. We cannot even pay for our elections. As a ward of the international community that cannot pay for its own elections, our country is not in a position to ignore or resist pressures from the international community. We are more vulnerable to sanctions than Nigeria and our external patrons have invested a lot in putting things back together in our country that they are not about to throw-in the towel and allow some of its efforts to be undone by the greed, insensitivity and callousness of rogue politicians.

Third, the post-war situation in Sierra Leone sharply differs from what obtains in Nigeria (40 years removed from its own civil war). Nigeria is not coming out of war and did not experience the trauma our people had to go through because of bad governance. Maintaining the status-quo in Sierra Leone is not an option, as this will only take us back to some of the darkest days in our political history.

Mass aspirations in Sierra Leone can no longer be snuffed or derailed by the machinations of opportunistic politicians. A restive public determined to have a say in electing the next government will deliver us from the SLPP just as we were delivered from the APC, NPRC, AFRC and RUF. In all four cases, it was the power of the people that forced changes and ultimately carried the day.

Fourth, the youth factor weighs decisively against the incumbent party in Sierra Leone’s elections. The overwhelming majority of youths are disaffected and many have sought political refuge in the opposition PMDC and APC, less because they are convinced these out of power parties can take them to some promised land than because they are fed-up with the “Swegbehs” and “Ayampis” that pass for leaders in the SLPP government. Elections are the safety valves of political systems and in societies coming out of war they provide unique opportunities for relating lessons from the war to leadership choices in elections. Any attempt to deny the people their choice of leader will take away our electoral safety valve and plunge us into unnecessary crisis and chaos.

The one knock against Sierra Leone is the judiciary. Nigeria’s Supreme Court consistently ruled against the incumbent government in a series of election-related cases and this helped to assert a semblance of checks and balances (judicial review) in a political system that is otherwise quasi-authoritarian. Sierra Leone’s judiciary, which has on several occasions demonstrated its lack of autonomy from the executive, cannot be expected to function as bulwark against abuses by the incumbent government in matters relating to the forthcoming elections. In the final instance, People Power will be more determinative than any other political force in the 2007 elections and its aftermath.

When all is said and done, SLPP partisans should find no solace in what happened in Nigeria. Nigeria’s political landscape is quite different from ours and Yar’Adua is not a rogue politician like Berewa. It is comparatively far less difficult to impose a politician who is not corrupt on a country like Nigeria than it is to shove a loathed and incorrigibly corrupt politician like Berewa down the throats of Sierra Leoneneans. Simply put, Yar’Adua is not the damaged political good that is Berewa.

Photo: Vice-President Solomon Berewa.