The SLPP and the danger of political extremism in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is a democratic society, and majority of Sierra Leoneans support peacefully President Ernest Bai Koroma and the All People’s Congress.  The All People’s Congress defeated the Sierra Leone People’s Party at the polls using the ballots in 2007.  Although the SLPP have failed to acknowledge it, their stoppage from winning a single seat in the Capital City Freetown, shows a moderate electorate that serenely registered their disdain for the then ruling SLPP.  The Sierra Leone People’s Party went into that election split, pigheaded, and snobbish.  Those who spoke against the party’s shift toward fascism were ostracized.  The leadership encouraged fanatics who preferred to keep in place the blindfolds top party brats had erected.  Notwithstanding the SLPP’s propagation of party unity and popular support, these were bogus claims and there were no consensus within SLPP.  If anything, the harmony was for a quiet revolution to unseat the SLPP, who were by now behaving like an extremist group. 

  Despite the rumbling between Margai faction and the Solo-B gang at CKC, the voters were determined to reject dictatorship in Sierra Leone politics. Despite stalking Ernest Bai Koroma and his entourage at vulnerable points around the nation, SLPP’s extremism was doom to fail in Sierra Leone. The majority of Sierra Leoneans elected to change political parties and leadership.  Sierra Leoneans opted for a more moderate and mainstream political agenda that is tolerant of people’s views and rights. SLPP extremism was defeated in 07, and it looks like it is heading for a meltdown before 2012.

  After eleven years of war, today’s Sierra Leone is made of unassuming and moderate citizens, who are more convinced by tangible plans than vague rhetoric and ABC promises.  Today’s Sierra Leone is also a makeup of a better-informed electorate who has means of discerning the consistently misleading notions, evident within a political group (be it Green or Red).  The SLPP may have different assumptions in their minds.  However, it is a given fact that a consensus does not exist in their extremist camp.  Moreover, whatever the misgivings of the Sierra Leone People’s Party are, the shared outlook of the bigger populace is that their attempts to superimpose political extremism on the people of Sierra Leoneans would fail awfully.  After eleven years of bloodshed, and brutal actions, constantly waving the wand of war is distasteful, insensitive, manipulative, illogical, and points to embedded political extremism within the Sierra Leone’s People Party.

  Since their loss to the All People’s Congress in 2007, the Sierra Leone People’s Party has shown ever-increasing signs of opinionated fanaticism (political extremism).  Robert Kennedy once said, “What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme but that they are intolerant.  The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents”.  President Ernest Bai Koroma’s administration had barely gotten into office before SLPP began planting fears in the minds of Sierra Leoneans about the return of violence, corruption, tribalism, and raping of women at the resurgence of the All People’s Congress. Extremist plans were at work from the very start of EBK’s administration.

 Although their chairperson to be (JOB) and others were the very perpetuators of violence during the Presidential Elections, they spread the false rumor about the return of hooliganism, intimidation, and uncivilized behaviors since the APC was back in power.  The hierarchy of the Sierra Leone People’s Party and their news outlets have constantly applied the “character assassination” tactics against prominent members of the ruling All People’s Congress.  Beginning with EBK, to the devoted women who offered to be caretakers/custodians of the Statehouse, as their own contributions to nation building, SLPP extremist have continually spread false rumors about the APC.  Instead of presenting convincing arguments to the citizens of Sierra Leone, hearsay, hot gossips, and threats are popular devices used by Sierra Leone’s extremist opposition (SLPP).  Name-calling, cataloging, and odious actions are all strategies that the extremist SLPP have employed in an attempt to regain power at all cost.   

  Fellow Patriots, hear this, “One Country, One People.  S.L.P.P.  The Only Way Out.  The Only Way Forward.  The Only Way Through.  And the Power to the People.  Bouncing Back 2012.  At Sharp 12.”  What does this read like?  It reads like the green light to an extremist political movement.  Who conjured the flawed thinking that the SLPP has the exclusive right to lead Sierra Leone?  Do all Sierra Leoneans “only” have to consent to their imprudent and fascist style of governance for peace to continue in the nation?  How incorrect is the SLPP’s thinking that, they have no equal and or unsurpassed in political excellence?  The shared ill-gotten approach of SLPP extremist does not speak for the majority Sierra Leoneans. 

  Their outlandish rhetoric of ‘no more than our party’ is bequeath with the wherewithal to lead the people of Sierra Leone, is insidious in a pluralistic and democratic nation.  To imply that they are without political counterparts (“Only”) is indicative of the grandiosity and posturing of this group of Sierra Leoneans who find themselves way off ‘mainstream’ and the political center of Sierra Leone in 2009 leading up to 2012.  It is disquieting that the moderates within the SLPP could allow themselves to be bullied by extremists whose authoritative objective is to disrupt peace, progress, and development in Sierra Leone.  Will the temperate members of SLPP please stand up and speak out?  Sierra Leone is bigger than the southeastern bullheads and SLPP scalawags. 

The extremists within the SLPP are acting irresponsibly to reclaim power devoid of the thorough understanding about the circumstances that led to their 07 demise.  In the process what is unfolding are despondent consequences that slows down the overall development of Sierra Leone.  However, 2012 is coming and the electorates will have their chance to reward the All People’s Congress with their ballots, and send to oblivion the extremist SLPP with the same ballots.  In contemporary Sierra Leone, the thought of bullets flying everywhere is not the image on people’s minds except the SLPP warmongers and extremists.  Why the constant allusion to war?   

 The clock is ticking and I trust Sierra Leoneans are recording who is for peace and development (APC), and who is against unity and progress (SLPP Extremists).  The clock is ticking and time is running out on the extremist SLPP.  We will always remind the electorate that JOB was behind the successful coup, but failed military regime of 1992 and has exhibited an appetite for violence in contemporary times.  He is attempting to lead the party down an extremely violent path.  The clock is ticking, and we will shout from Mount Bintumani and everywhere who lighted up Freetown (EBK), and who was wishing for endless darkness (SLPP Extremists).  The clock is ticking, and all those who walked out when the Mining Act 2009 was passed will be voted out, beginning with Emmanuel Tommy. The Kono’s will know that he is putting politics before their lives, therefore unfit for re-election.  The clock is ticking for all the Kono MPs to be shown the exit door for being SLPP extremists.  

  Much as they may want to point to the wrong timing on the Clock Tower, SLPP’s timing since 06 has been completely offbeat, off base, off-putting, off mainline, off mainstream Sierra Leone thinking.  The clock is ticking to expose the extremists’ overtones and overtures of the impenitent Sierra Leone People’s Party.  Lines like the only way out are explosive because it gives the bigheaded insinuation that there are no other solutions and or resolve.  It forthrightly wipes out all alternatives and subsidiaries to possible answers.  Only stiff-necked, unyielding and extremists individuals will guarantee that their party’s ideologies map “The only way forward” for an entire nation.  To exacerbate their extremists’ creed they write, “The only way through”.  Sierra Leonean voters will show SLPP extremists one way through, DEFEAT; take the people for granted and fail to stand up for their interest when it counts the most you will be defeated through the ballot.

  Post-Modernism has no place for extremism.  We have seen how societies have been destroyed and genocide carried out by people with extremist views.  Not in Sierra Leone now, or in 2012!  We watched in dismay as extremists Al-Qaida inflicted carnage during 911 on innocent Americans and people of other nationalities residing in New York.  Not in Sierra Leone now, in 2012 sharp 12 or ever again. We have seen how extremist thinking and ideologies have pushed failed states to further anarchy and obliteration.  Not in Sierra Leone in 2012, and ever again in our motherland. SLPP’s Extremism will fail.  

  In Sierra Leone, there are ways to show that democracy works and innocent human lives cannot be sacrificed for selfish political gains.  There are ways to show the Sierra Leone People’s Party that they are the problems to Sierra Leone’s development and progress.  One way forward is with the All People Congress.  One way through is consensus building not cacophony?  If the extremists are thinking that being crybabies will give them their political pacifiers/nipples at the detriment of the nation, they must grow up and grow up fast.  Sierra Leoneans excluding Emerson must show the Sierra Leone People’s Problem (Extremist SLPP) the back door to infamy and defeat.   

  We see the disconcerting signs of political extremism behind the SLPP’s smokescreen of One Country One People.  The entrenched motives of the Sierra Leone People’s Party are divisive, and tribalistic.  Patriotic Sierra Leoneans should frown at the SLPP attempts at stalling national developments until 2013 with hopes of winning in 2012.  Moderate and mainstream Sierra Leoneans across the political divide should speak against SLPP extremism.  Sierra Leone People Party does not offer the “ONLY” way out, forward and through.  Ideological myths like these if left unchecked form the basis for unspoken evils inflicted against others.  The false notion of fascism should be challenged in an attempt to unfetter political tolerance and national unity in Sierra Leone.  The Republic of Sierra Leone is a pluralistic society where religious, gender, social, and political tolerance are encouraged.  One possible way forward is to support the progressive All People’s Congress.  Another possible way out of underdevelopment is to decry the extremist Sierra Leone’s People’s Party for opposing policies of national development.  DOWN WITH SLPP POLITICAL EXTREMISM IN SIERRA LEONE. 

PHOTO : SLPP CHAIRMAN JOHN BENJAMIN AND ISATA KABBAH : PICTURE CREDIT : AWOKO

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