Although this article was written in January 2001 and published in Expo Times, the issues discussed are still relevant today.However the 2002 elections have come and gone and Kabbah is still president of Sierra Leone. Good for him. I shall from time to time be bringing our readers my writings from the past like this one. Enjoy.
By Gibril Koroma
Recently we heard that some opposition parliamentarians in our country, Sierra Leone, were crossing the carpet to the SLPP.
This is not news in the land of YOU GO SOBA as our political history is full of such happenings, some of the most memorable being the wedding of the SLPP juggernauts Salia Jusu Sheriff and F.M. Minah with the infamous APC in the 70s.
But it is really sad, isn’t it, when people who are supposed to provide alternative ideas or policies different from that of the ruling party suddenly turn coat or metamorphose into something else because of nothing but personal interest.
But the present opposition parliamentarians in Sierra Leone are a miserable lot; we have to admit that. Most of them do not have constituencies they can call their own; a lot of them do not have any profitable means to earn a living; what you may call SUKYA men determined to cling on to their parliamentary seats or get a fat government job, preferably in the diamond sector so that they can at least build themselves a nice house at Hill Station or some other posh Freetown district, buy a superb Mercedes Benz to take them around Freetown’s bombed streets and have a go at the teeming uneducated and unemployed young girls.
As I write this, the faces of some of the alleged turncoats flash through my mind. Take Dr. Raymond Kamara of the UNPP for example. If what they say about him is true then this guy has really undergone a mental political revolution because it is really difficult to imagine a dyed in the wool UNPP man like Korthor Raymond fraternising with or, horror of horrors, wearing SLPP colours. It seems he has really reached the point of no return with old man Karefa-Smart who at one time attempted to throw him out of parliament. Northern politicians still have a long way to go in terms of unity and solidarity.
As for Dr. S.S.Magona, the APC top brass never trusted him even though he rose to become a top APC thug and looter otherwise known as Minister of State in the Siaka Stevens or Bandele days. Magona of Kenema has always been SLPP even though he massaged the APC and fooled Thaimu Bangura’s PDP-Sorbeh. I quite remember him some years back when he and some other parliamentary goons were strenuously trying to get me to apologise for what they called ’’CONTEMPT OF PARLIAMENT’’ after I wrote about some of their thieving activities. Good old Magona! I wish him well.
You also have fat B.M. Kamanda, the semi-literate Foday Koroma and the drunkard Sahr Fillie-Faboe all swimming in the SLPP lagoon.
Some people say the SLPP has bought these guys with some diamonds and UN money as they prepare to stay in power for another six months.
I am one of those who do not think we can have elections this year because of obvious reasons but we definitely don’t need the SLPP to steer us to true democracy, they are not capable of that. If they insist and continue to cling then anything might happen. I hope Kabbah would see reason, wash his hands of politics and go back to New York where he came from. That will be the best thing for him to do. The politics of PASS AR DIE are over in Sierra Leone.
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Photo: Gibril G. Koroma
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