By Sallieu T. Kamara
The seemingly ailing former president of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, was in Karina in Biriwa chiefdom, Bombali district, last week where he paraded the presidential flag bearer of the Sierra Leone People’s Party, Julius Maada Bio, to his largely Mandingo audience that turned out for the occasion. The former president, who was supported by some party faithful throughout the short walk to the Karina mosque where he and his entourage attended Muslim prayers, carried a very simple message: “I am presenting Julius Maada Bio to you as my own
candidate for the upcoming November 17 elections and I would like all of you to give him maximum support that will see him occupy State House after the elections”. This, clearly, is Ahmad Tejan Kabbah’s official and public endorsement of the candidacy of Julius Maada Bio. It was a fantastic atmosphere to behold.
But even though this show of unequivocal support by the former president has buoyed
up the hopes of hundreds of thousands of SLPP supporters here in
Sierra Leone and abroad, it has also set several tongues wagging.
This is not because Ahmad Tejan Kabbah never did this for his
anointed heir apparent, Solomon Berewa, in the run-up to the 2007
presidential elections. But rather he is campaigning for someone
(Julius Maada Bio) whom he had publicly condemned as unpatriotic,
corrupt, a coupist, liar and a hater of democracy. These are charges
that Julius Maada Bio has not yet challenged or denied. Nor has Ahmad
Tejan Kabbah ever withdrawn the accusations he levelled against him.
The accusations are so serious that they cannot be just glossed over,
particularly when they are directed at somebody seeking to occupy the
highest political office in the land.
Julius Maada Bio is one of six young soldiers who planned the coup that overthrew the
All People's Congress government of Joseph Saidu Momoh in April 1992.
Bio held high profile positions in the National Provisional Ruling
Council military regime that ensued, including Secretary of State for
Information and Broadcasting, Principal Liaison Officer III and Vice
Chairman. In January 1996, he staged a palace coup that ousted his
boss, Valentine Strasser, and assumed the chairmanship of the NPRC, a
position he held for about two months. He handed over power to Ahmad
Tejan Kabbah and his SLPP party after general elections in February
1996.
As a former president, I am sure it should not be the wish and aspiration of
Ahmad Tejan Kabbah to give Sierra Leoneans a president that cannot be
trusted with the nation’s resources, as well as the nation’s hard
fought for democracy. By what Tejan Kabbah said of him, which up to
this day nobody has challenged, right-thinking Sierra Leoneans and
the international community can continue to keep a wary eye on Julius
Maada Bio as the date for the elections draws closer, especially if
he continues to keep quiet about the allegations. Some of us are
still optimistic, though, that Maada Bio will sooner rather than
later muster the courage to face the people of this country and tell
them his own side of the story.
In a speech on 2 January 1997 to commission a gunboat and landing craft donated by the
Chinese Government at Government Wharf in Freetown, President Kabbah
told an edgy nation that his government had uncovered two coup plots
to overthrow his nascent government between October 1996 and January
1997. He blamed this on the unwillingness of the National Provisional
Ruling Council junta to hand over power to his newly-elected civilian
government.
“It is common knowledge that the NPRC regime handed over power very
reluctantly and grudgingly as a result of the irresistible and
overwhelming desire and determination of the population for an
elected government. Consequently, some members of the NPRC left their
personal staff and bodyguards with the impression that the NPRC was
only going on break. Some of the soldiers in that category actually
believed this and are still unwilling to give any civilian
administration a dog’s chance for survival, as now evidenced,”
Tejan Kabbah said. This effaces any kernel of truth in the much
touted claim in mainly opposition circles that Julius Maada Bio is
the “father of democracy in Sierra Leone” because of the above
evidnce that he willingly returned power to a civilian government.
Tejan Kabbah further espoused clear and lucid reasons for his claim. He said that
before Maada Bio handed over power in 1996, the NPRC had deliberately
told falsehood with the main aim of creating discord between the
ranks of the Sierra Leone Army and the civilian government that would
lay the basis for coup plots after they would have left. Soldiers of
all ranks were made to believe that the then outgoing NPRC of Julius
Maada Bio had generated enough money to increase salaries of soldiers
by 500 percent, knowing fully-well that this was not true.
“Another method employed by the outgoing NPRC to sow the seed of discord in
the army against the civilian government was to convince every
soldier that at the departure of the NPRC government a decision had
already been taken and communicated to my government that every
soldier was to be awarded a 500% salary increase and that this amount
had already been provided by the World Bank and the IMF.
“The fact of the matter is that there was no such decision by the NPRC to
award such salary increase to the military and no such decision was
communicated by them to my government on assumption of office.
Neither the World Bank nor the IMF has made any provision of salary
increases for the military or for any other public sector worker. In
any case, these organizations do not make such provisions,” Tejan
Kabbah further said.
Ahmad Tejan Kabbah’s speech further questioned the patriotic credentials of the
NPRC, and Julius Maada Bio in particular. If a patriot is one who
loves country more than self, then, by the judgement of Tejan Kabbah,
Julius Maada Bio is far from being a patriot. At a time Sierra Leone
was going through very difficult times in terms of prosecuting the
war and managing a depleted economy, the NPRC junta – with Julius
Maada Bio the second in command – were busy entering into dubious
contracts and apparently inflating contract prices to personally
benefit themselves and their relatives at the expense of the state
and the suffering people of this country.
A clear evidence of this was in October 1995 when the NPRC government hurriedly
entered into an agreement with a Lebanese businessman for the supply
of a 35-year-old naval boat at the astronomical cost of $ 5. 5
million. The naval boat was not a priority at that time and the
hierarchy of the NPRC knew it because the government had already
acquired the American vessel m.v. Farandugu at the cost of about $
1.3 million. This was in addition to two other naval boats that the
Chinese government had donated to the government of Sierra Leone and
there was a firm commitment by them to supply another naval boat and
landing craft. So there was absolutely no need for the country to buy
another naval boat at that point in time.
“It is therefore a matter of some wonder and concern that the outgoing
NPRC government as late as October 1995 entered into a private
agreement with a local firm for the purchase of a 35-year old naval
patrol boat at the astronomical cost of US$5,500,000. This amount
converted into Leones will read as Le5,225,000,000. This was after
the government had acquired the American vessel, the m.v. Farandugu
in 1989 and unequivocal undertaking had been made by the Chinese
government in 1994 to donate to the government of Sierra Leone the
naval patrol boat and landing craft which I am about to launch
today…. The circumstances thus surrounding this purported contract,
and at such an astronomical cost to the nation, therefore leaves much
to be desired,” Tejan Kabbah again.
The former president grimaced at the granting of a general power of attorney to
the elder brother of Julius Maada Bio, Steve Bio, by the NPRC. This
unholy alliance saw the conclusions of several dubious contracts by
Steve Bio on behalf of the NPRC; contracts that were successfully
used as conduit to siphon hundreds of millions of Leones from the
already overstretched state coffers. He even accused Maada Bio of
personally benefiting from such illegal deals.
“Another instance of the reckless and irresponsible manner in which the
affairs of state were conducted by the NPRC regime is in the granting
of a general power of attorney to Steven Bio, the brother of the
erstwhile head of state and government, to conclude all and any
defence and military contracts anywhere in the world and at his sole
discretion, as the accredited agent of the government of Sierra
Leone. By virtue of such unusual authority, Steven Bio concluded a
number of contracts running into tens of millions of dollars. There
is no evidence that most of those contracts have been performed but
Steven Bio has already been paid millions of dollars on them and he
is claiming further amounts as arrears of payments.
“Furthermore, in his capacity as chairman of the NPRC, Brigadier J.M. Bio himself
on the 1st February 1996, few days before he left office, caused the government
to pay into the account of his private firm, P. Banga Investment
Limited the sum of Le235,000,000 in respect of contracts that that
firm had purportedly entered into with government for the supply of
spare parts for the replacement of helicopter engines which did not
belong to government. Incidentally, it was into the account of this
same firm in the Channel Islands that Brigadier Bio paid his own
share of US$400,000 from the passport deal which was disclosed
recently,” Tejan Kabbah further indicted his presidential hopeful,
Julius Maada Bio.
This, in my view, is the real Julius Maada Bio in the eyes of former
president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, pure and simple. By presenting Maada
Bio to the people of Karina, Tejan Kabbah, by implication, is
presenting him to the entire people of Sierra Leone. And for Tejan
Kabbah to ask Sierra Leoneans to vote Maada Bio as the next
president, a man he had ascribed attributes that are not compatible
with good leadership, he is only showcasing the highest disrespect
and his “bad
haart”
for the people of Sierra Leone. And whether Maada Bio wins or loses,
this generation of Sierra Leoneans and the next will judge Tejan
Kabbah unkindly.
The argument by supporters of Maada Bio, including his spokesman, Hon Tamba Sam, that
whosoever believes that Bio has committed any wrong should take him
to court, is highly flawed. As someone gunning for the presidency of
the country, Maada Bio should start demonstrating traits of
responsiveness to the concerns of the people he is aspiring to lead,
particularly when such concerns border on his character and moral
credentials. Maada Bio should know that the more he chooses to keep
quiet, the more Sierra Leoneans will believe that the allegations
that Tejan Kabbah levelled against him are true. And if indeed they
are true, then he has no business contesting for the highest office
in the land.
Tejan Kabbah knows better than most other Sierra Leoneans the volume of
damage – nationally and internationally – a corrupt leader can
cause a nation.
As a former civil servant in Sierra Leone and at the UN, and as a
trained lawyer and former Head of State, Tejan Kabbah knows the
damaging effects of corruption, as well as the reckless and
irresponsible handling of the affairs of state, on the poor masses.
He clearly demonstrated his knowledge of this in his speech on the
presentation of the annual report of the Anti-Corruption Commission
in Freetown on 26 July 2002 when he stated:
“Sierra Leone is perceived as a corrupt country. Reference is often made to
corruption in Sierra Leone as chronic corruption, and endemic
corruption. Of course, corruption as a human and societal ill exists
everywhere. However, the level of this phenomenon in Sierra Leone is
unacceptable for several reasons: It helps to compound the disparity
in the distribution of wealth and social opportunities among the
people; it fuels discontent among the people. As we have learned,
there is some correlation between corruption and security.
“We are told that one of the main causes of the war is the prevalence of
corruption among public officers, and that this caused the
estrangement of those who took up arms in this country. Corruption
prevents the growth of the economy of the nation, and the efficient
performance of the public service; Corruption is a moral issue and a
social ill since it promotes the inequitable distribution of the
nation's wealth among the population….; and there is clear
correlation between corruption and the flow of donor assistance and
the provision of resources for development”.
With all of this, why is Tejan Kabbah still pushing a candidate for the
presidency of this country whom he himself has provided evidence to
suggest him to be corrupt, reckless and irresponsible in handling the
affairs of state? Both Maada Bio and Tejan Kabbah have some
explaining to do. And the earlier they do it the better.
(c) Politico 11/09/12
