WHY ARE SOME SIERRA LEONEANS SO HARD TO PLEASE ?

The events of the past days  have exposed some Sierra Leoneans and of course supporters of the opposition Sierra Leone People's Party ( SLPP ) as people who just  cannot handle Truth and Honesty. Yes, indeed, we have a very loud and boisterous opposition and some citizens who love to pontificate but when Truth and Honesty jump up and bite them on the butt, they just cannot handle it. They must scamper away whining and whelping like overgrown puppies that have just been frightened by an unknown predator from outer space . At a time when everybody should be hailing crusading  President  Ernest Bai Koroma for at last doing what no other leader in Sierra Leone has ever done--lay down  the marker against corruption and give culprits the shakes  --- listen to all the glib and asinine reviews in  newspapers .They want to make one sick.

PHOTO : PRESIDENT KOROMA : HE MUST JUST CONTINUE DOING WHAT IS RIGHT

Why are  some Sierra Leoneans so difficult to please ?  . Show them exemplary and exceptional honesty ,they call it hypocrisy. Allow the grass to grow under your feet, they assail you with all manner of names. What do we really want in Sierra Leone ? Do we really want progress and national redemption from a hydra-headed monster that has depressed us for so long ? Or do we want to remain myred in backwardness , graft and kleptocractic governance ?

I can bet anybody my best sunday suit that if President Koroma had gone ahead and done what many are suggesting that he should have fired the suspected corrupt officials , the same Sierra Leoneans would have accused him of acting rashly and abrasively. The sing-song would have been that President Ernest Koroma was cruel and insensitive and deprived some citizens of their daily bread .The talk would have been that President Koroma  should have warned the officials first before bringing down the scalpel on them. Some Sierra Leoneans remind me of the story we all read as kids in the primary school story book about the man, his son and the donkey. When people saw the man and his kid riding the donkey, they started clamouring about how wicked and heartless the man was for allowing himself and his kid to ride the poor donkey. Wanting to please them, the man told his son to step down and let him ride the donkey alone. They had hardly done that when people started complaining again that the man was too insensitive to the lad, enjoying the luxury of a ride on the donkey's back , while the poor boy walked. The man decided to listen and stepped down and let the boy alone ride the donkey . He thought he had done the best thing , but what happened ? The people still continued complaining --this time that the lad was so disrespectful  and insensitive to his father , riding the donkey while the old man walked. The Sierra Leoneans mostly guilty of this unprogressive streak to find fault with anything done by the All People's Congress ( APC) --THEIR SCOURGE --are SLPP supporters. Nothing is ever right, as long as it is not done by the SLPP  or its agents. Even if President Koroma goes ahead and fires his entire cabinet, it will make no difference to the SLPP. In fact, they will build negative stories around it. Sierra Leone would then know that they have a President who is self-serving, wicked, wilful and too hash and too rash.

The President did nothing wrong to summon heads of ministeries and state institutions that he had evidence were performing below par in implementing his message of transparent and accountable  government and warn them strongly that if they did not shape out they will be shipped out. It was not a temper-tantrum. President Koroma is known as a cool , composed and calculatted person who is difficult to lose his temper. However, he is a man who wants people to do their work and eschew corruption and those evil practices of the past that sunk our people. He is not an Albert Mrgai or Siaka Stevens or  Joseph Momoh or Valentine Strasser or Ahmed Tejan Kabbah who allowed corruption to thrive in Sierra Leone under their watch. President Koroma is an honest man, a man who once he has committed himself to his people wants to deliver his promises. He cannot accomplish this if the people he relies on keep disappointing him and doing the very things he is fighting to crush in Sierra Leone. The President therefore had a right to blow his mind. If he remains silent, the very Sierra Leoneans now trying to ridicule him will accuse him of falling to sleep on his job.

Also, President Koroma did not do it to make any of his public functionary feel humiliated . A MAN IS EMPLOYED BY GOVERNMENT TO DO HIS JOB. HE IS PAID FOR THE JOB HE IS DOING. Nobody forced him to accept the job. All jobs have standards and expectations, except we want to say again that this is not the case in  the  free-for-all Sierra Leone that President Koroma inherited. Government officials and appointees are adults. They are not babies. They know what they were employed to do. They are accountable for their actions and their performance. If they do not perform, they must expect the hammer to fall.President Koroma is not here to pet and pamper anybody or play "BABY KAFO " ( Apologies , Ghanaian friends ) with public officials. Whoever does not do what is right must face the consequences.

Tomorrow, we will start looking at all the arguments so far propounded and seek to demolish them with sound and logical reasoning, Cocorioko-style ! !

Keep a date with Sierra Leone's most frank and most widely read newspaper.

< Prev		Next >