“At dusk of Wednesday, 8th February, 2012, in the court barrie of Lokomassama, Port Loko District, in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone, dozens of former SLPP leaders and partisans of the chiefdom publicly took off their green SLPP T-shirts (some, with campaign T-shirts of the 2007 SLPP presidential candidate, Solomon Berewa) and put on red T-shirts of the governing APC – in the presence of the APC Leader and Chairman, H.E. President Ernest Bai Koroma. There was loud cheering from the crowd inside and outside the court barrie. Bedlam broke when dozens more former SLPP partisans surged forward to get their own APC T-shirts. The green SLPP T-shirts were then publicly burned by the former SLPP partisans now turned APC….”
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Oswald Hanciles, Special Assistant to the President (Media Outreach).
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It is apparent that the distinction between state and party in Sierra Leone is becoming blurred; and this apparent reality has never become so glaring like it is under the current dispensation. But what is even more worrying for me, and I would imagine for many, is the ample evidence that political bigotry in the country is taking a different dimension: opposition party T-shirts are burnt publicly in an occasion attended by no less a person than our President.
My apprehension is informed by the excerpt above, taken from a news story written by the newly-appointed Special Assistant to the President (Media Outreach). The news story, no doubt also brings to the fore a number of questions that should be raised for public consumption.
Let us start with the burning incident. When has the practice of burning opposition party T-shirts become part of our political ritual is not known, but what happened at Lokomasama on 8 February, 2012 is certainly no ordinary event and should therefore not be swept under the rug. A plain and simple exhibition of political intolerance, partisan bigotry and violence, albeit psychological in nature, climaxed that occasion. And what even gave such a drama a bad taste was that the president of the country was in attendance. The point should be made that nothing is absolutely wrong with people switching their political allegiances. Such a practice is as old as the existence of political parties themselves. What is worrying and therefore unacceptable is for local and national party leaders to condone the practice of burning opposition T-shirts or those of their opponents. This is outright provocation and an incitement to violence.
And coming just about a month after the President declared a week-long fasting for divine intervention for the country’s myriad socio-economic problems, it is inconceivable that that same President would attend a meeting where opposition T-shirts are “publicly set ablaze”. The act is anything but a demonstration of a party that wants to run a united country. In the same vein, the act betrays the President’s numerous public utterances as a man of peace. The President may not have sanctioned the burning of the opposition T-shirts but for such an event to have happened in an occasion he attended - even if the act did not take place in his presence – and he failed to condemn it, is unfortunate.
The point should be made that the APC should realise it is in power and for that reason, it should not provoke or incite situation that would trigger violent reactions from its opponents, except if that was part of the plot – provoking opposition supporters to react violently and then hold them responsible for disturbing the peace. Put in another way, government ministers and sections of the media cannot convince us that the opposition SLPP is a violent party when their own supporters are involved in acts of violence themsleves. The pot cannot call the kettle black.
Meanwhile, it is not clear whether President Koroma visited Lokomasama in his capacity as President of the country to perform state functions, or as “leader and chairman” of the APC Party to meet with his supporters. However, it would appear from the content of the news release that what took place at the “court barrie” was an outright political campaign in an apparent contravention of the electoral laws of Sierra Leone. While elections are some nine months away and the electoral laws forbid all political parties from embarking on campaigning, the occasion at the Lokomasama “court barrie” has all the trappings of a political campaign. May be someone should remind President Koroma of the numerous condemnations he made of similar practices when he was opposition leader in the run up to the 2007 elections.
Similarly, the tone and nature of the news release raises questions about the appointment of Oswald Hanciles as Special Assistant to the President (Media Outreach). I really do not know his terms of reference, but I’m inclined to believe that as "special Assistant" on media outreach his key responsibility should be to advise the president on how to relate to the media. However, what he seems to be doing is to function as the President’s official mouthpiece. More importantly, the manner in which he is executing that role seems to be counter-productive in my estimation. For instance, the news release about the Lokomasama occasion was a major public relations blunder. While one would understand the exuberance with which he wants to carry out his job, writing a news release about a President attending a meeting where people burn opposition T-shirts is not a display of public relations professionalism.
This practice also brings to the fore, the issue of those that are officially sanctioned to speak for the President. As it stands now, there are about half a dozen spokespersons for the President making uncoordinated statements and issuing news releases, sometimes with mixed messages that are confusing the people. This is an example of how not to run a government. Public relations principles demand that an entity speaks with one voice, lest that entity risks discrediting itself with confusing messages.
As we look forward to a peaceful conduct of our elections in November this year, we probably should remind our President that the buck stops with him. He may be in a position now to ignore many of the misconducts of his supporters but he cannot stay in power for more than five additional years (provided he wins the November polls) to continue protecting them. Certainly we would all someday become ordinary citizens again. Remember, what goes around comes around!
