By Tanu Jalloh
Events unfolding in the political landscapes radiate a confirmation of the belief some people held about agrand plan - the ‘more time’ agenda –which now seemed to have recoiled in the face of stiff opposition, led by civil society groups. That was a President Ernest Bai Koroma agenda.
The attempt, to call for an extension of time for President Koroma on the grounds that he lost time to the Ebola outbreak, was well financed and coordinated. Granted that the disease killed nearly 4,000 people, ravaged the country’s health systems and almost crumbled its economy and consequently took out 18 months from his second term of five years. But it seems as if even after attempts to kill it the ‘more time’ agenda continues to show some residual effects as evident in the latest cabinet reshuffle.
Two things emerged: first, it was either that those who believed and still believe in the cause were being consolidated in terms of power and resources or they were being rewarded for having endured the shame and public ridicule that came with the attempt to impose a political culture that could only have survived in the Stevens’ era, where the political space for any opposition was virtually nonexistent.
The more timers
Bai Mahmoud Bangura was presidential youth aid and now minister of youth affairs. He fought his predecessor Alimamy Kamara, who was said to have made him in a way. He apparently gained the relevance that brought him the cabinet position largely because of his role in the campaign for ‘more time’ for President Ernest Bai Koroma.
Minister Balogun Logus Koroma messed up in 2012 campaigns as coordinator and was punished. Last year he bungled up the purchase of the 100 buses, caused the government a huge embarrassment and attracted sentiments that could live on till elections day.Yet, he survived as the minister of transport and aviation.
Mamoud Tarawally was disgraced and sacked over allegations of inappropriate behaviour, survived a court case over claims of rapebut was scorned at for what was clearly an attempt to abuse his office to grant overseas scholarship opportunities for pleasure. Despite those issues around him, he was brought in again as deputy minister of lands to offset a Port Loko vacuum in government and to balance the power against people like Alpha Kanu, sacked minister of information.
Karamoh Kabbah wanted a full ministerial office so he had to get involved with and in every controversy that had unsettled Kono and its people in the last two years. He was the deputy minister at Political Affairs but he would have preferred other portfolio to being a resident minister east. Diana Konomanyi caused a lot of problems in the ministry of local government but had been sent to the ministry of lands. She would certainly miss the awesome show of power she was used to as the supervisor of local government authority. Like Karamoh, also said to be in the middle of the Kono instability,Diana has a big ego and certainly expected a bigger office than that of lands.
Alfred Palo Conteh left the office of the National Ebola Response Centre(NERC) with a cloud of doubts still hanging over him because of the way he ran that office. The latest report on the audit of the management of the Ebola funds November 2014 to April 2015 raised huge credibility issues which must not go unchecked when he faces parliament for approval.
“The CEO [Palo Conteh] should within 30 days of the receipt of this report forward the documentary evidence in support of the expended amount of Le2,120,471,750 to the Audit Service for verification; otherwise, the whole amount should be disallowed and surcharged in accordance with Section 12 (b) of the Audit Service Act, 2014.
“In future, all transactions from inception to completion should be supported by the relevant documentary evidence which must be retained for audit and reference purposes” (ASSL 2016, p. 28).
“The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NERC should ensure that the following actions are taken within 30 days of the receipt of this report: An explanation together with the documentary evidence justifying the deviation from the normal procurement procedures and the basis on which the sole source method of procurement was decided upon…” (ASSL 2016, pp. 21-22).
Mohamed Bangura gave everything, including his soul, to get to the ministry of information.He set up a phony political party and later supported president Koroma in 2012; he later abandoned his party as leader and joined the APC, just a few of many desperate things he did to get to the cabinet.
All of the above and others who made it onto the biggest reshuffle of the decade had been part of the team that sought to deliver on a ‘more time’.That call for extension was the making of the president. I have every reason to believe now, more than ever before, that the infamous call to extend the years in office of the president was the making of the president himself. Given the kind of a president I know in him, anything as controversial as that, without his usual supply of oxygen, would have been dead long ago.
The more time madness
Until in January 2016 when Vice President Bockarie Foh, in no uncertain terms, warned against desperate people using the name of the president to call for ‘more time’, I had always felt that that joke was just a vintage, but effective, tactic to test the pulse of the nation through some infamous ‘grassroots’. Meanwhile, all this ‘more time’ madness really actually got underway at the October conference of the All Peoples Congress(APC) youth league in Makeni. EBK was there and the declaration was made but he made no fuss about it. Before that time the star-crossed politician political activist, Logus Koroma, supported by Robin Fallay, a belligerent former opposition politician, had failed to sell his ‘after-U-na-U’ campaign.
On the fringes of the Makeni retreat
A marathon of political events had just begun on the weekend of 24-25 October 2015in Makeni, north of the country, the stronghold of the ruling All Peoples’ Congress, APC.That was after the leader and chairman of the party, Ernest Koroma, had blown the whistle for all to start the race for political recognition or supremacy with him as the ref. I must state that I wasn’t a delegate, so I couldn’t have witnessed the closed-door sessions of the two-day APC youth conference at theUNIMAK auditorium inside St. Francis compound on Azzolini Highway.
Therefore, when I set out to write my piece I chose to look at the extra conference activities and the power play that came in the forms of social gatherings, the post-confab gossips, the jokes, the display of opulence, the bevy of ladies, the flaunting of cars and largesse, the name-calling and the drunken fights. The local economy blossomed in four days to the extent that we had to pay extra for anything on demand. The facilities contracted and became scarce.
For a whole week Makeni, the headquarter town of Bombali district, was a beehive of activities and had, in all probability, benefitted from the government the most in the last eight years. It is safe to say that the city was deliberately being made for such purposes and infrastructurally empowered to hold every such gathering as the APC youth conference, the convention, the retreats and the football galas, and even the soirees. Many hotels and guesthouses had sprung up, ninety percent of macadamized roads, unparalleled electricity supply, busied pubs and nightclubs, more and more joints and idle benches had sprung up.
Political exhibition
Every bit of what was APC was flaunted in what was typically a political exhibition. It was an opportunity for the different candidates, hoping to lead the party to elections in 2018, to test the pulse of the party through the youth factor. President Koroma and of course his government were in attendance, something I think was beyond his control. Every APC politician, and those aspiring to be, wants to be seen around the president. Whether or not that was a party administrative policy, I take it that going around the president was fast becoming mandatorily functional for the stooges and bigots.
While we wait to see the APC converge on Makeni again for another show of the awesome power of incumbents, I think the youth conference in October last year was more of a ‘chilling’, a vogue probably unique to the enjoying political and business class in Sierra Leone. However, it was a fresh start of a marathon of events in APC politics that would take us to 2018 and beyond.
(C) Politico 15/03/16
