Saidu Bangura PhD: Sierra Leone: 02 June 2022:
We need to purge these two parties from our political ecology through the ballot box and ban all their reprobate members and collaborators from ever taking public office in our country for their part in the perennial pillaging of our economy or for not creating a country worth living in.
Sixty-one years of independence and sixty-one years of sociopolitical and socioeconomic damage and backwardness, coupled with nepotism, tribalism, and corruption orchestrated by these two political parties have led our country to become one of the poorest countries in the world with a low human development index rating of its people, our abundant natural and mineral resources notwithstanding.
The more we give these two political parties an opportunity to govern our country, the more they take us down the drains. The downward spiral is unending. It is time to give new political actors the opportunity to govern our country, and hopefully free our people from their economic woes.
A country like Cabo Verde with no mineral resources and no rains for six consecutive years now, yet most homes can boast of steady clean running water and constant electricity; boast of strong and independent institutions which have stood the test of time; people are paid on time; there is a good urban and inter-urban transport system; good roads; good and strong internet coverage; good and free public school system with no bogus data quality basic and secondary school bla bla bla system; an encouraging e-governance system that is being developed progressively year after year; young, but robust tertiary institutions which were not interrupted by Covid-19; no fake degree industries and scandal; no mischievous statistics institution running a syndicate of engineered data for political gains; no unpunished public financial misappropriation actors, that is, no sacred cows; hence minimal corruption practices by the political elites.
The political parties that have ever governed Cabo Verde since independence in 1975 have never connived to deprive us – the people, of our basic needs. In fact, they compete to deliver good service to the people – the reason why Cabo Verde is a Middle-Income Earning country irrespective of the fact that it was deemed impossible to survive when it gained its independence.
The one singular natural resource that has helped Cabo Verde is its human resource capital and the consequent progressive steps the country has made in building strong institutions through the human capital progressive mindset of its people and the efforts the politicians have made to implement best practices in all its institutions.
What has Sierra Leone and its people done to deserve these two rogue political parties?
Sierra Leone is where it is today because of these two political parties, their subset political renegades and their thieving collaborators. If we have a good leader who is honest with a good track record of integrity and discipline and humble enough to know that s/he was employed through the ballot box to serve the people of Sierra Leone, no Sierra Leonean will see the need to leave Sierra Leone for other countries and end up developing his/her host country that lacks the natural and mineral resources that we have; no Sierra Leonean will see emigration as an economic avenue and end up becoming a beggar in other countries that should have begged from Sierra Leone; no Sierra Leonean will be poor and hungry in a country like ours given the natural and mineral resources we have; no Sierra Leonean will be uneducated considering the historical trajectory of our educational institutions within West Africa and beyond; no Sierra Leonean will sleep in darkness because we have failed to tap into our natural resources for the production of clean energy; no Sierra Leonean will drink unclean and unsafe water from a dug well in Freetown and other major cities and towns considering the fact that we have six months or more of rains and our rivers are not short of that natural liquid.
We will all live at home and contribute to our collective development, happiness, peaceful co-existence, and enjoy our beautiful country blessed with a lot of natural and mineral resources.
After these two political parties have failed to make our diamonds, gold, iron ore, rutile, bauxite, and other mineral resources work for us, there are now rumours of oil and gas reserves to be explored and exploited by foreign companies.
If this is true, and the negotiators fail to think Sierra Leone first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and they dare think of themselves and what they stand to gain, Sierra Leone is gone and will become a failed state permanently. If this is true, and we fail to include the current economic decadence that we face as a nation at the negotiation table, then we are doomed for life as a people and country. If this is true, and we fail to include the prosperity of all Sierra Leoneans at the negotiation table, then we have lost our country and people.
If this is true, and we make only a cheap bargain for individual reasons and gains as we have done in other natural and mineral resources’ explorations, Sierra Leone will be wiped off the map of potentially and economically viable and prosperous nations. If this is true, and we do not think of changing the course of our nation, our children and children’s children will not have a country to call home.
Still, if the current administration allows whoever it is to explore our oil and gas reserves and we end up becoming exploited, we will have no country to call home.
If the current administration allows itself to be financially colonized by whoever it is and does not think of nationalizing the whole venture, we will have no country to call home. If the current administration allows itself to be bullied by whoever it is or any other billionaire to explore our oil and gas reserves without the country taking the lead, we will have no country to call home.
If the current administration tries to play political games for the 2023 elections with our oil and gas reserves, they will fail their party and their cronies and hence our country since they represent us as a government; for our people will continue to be fooled by another set of vague and flamboyant electoral promises.
If after sixty-one years of independence we cannot explore our natural wealth and cannot negotiate well for the benefit of all Sierra Leoneans, I think we will have no option but to go back to the drawing board for a new politically independent Sierra Leone which will give birth to an economically independent and sustainable country.
We have once sold our country to some foreign agents helped by our former colonial rogues, and they have ever been reigning economically on our natural and other resources. Now, new buyers are warming up to enter our field of mineral resources while our people’s sufferings are never in the agendas of these two thieving political parties and their associates.
Let us do all that we can to change the status quo established by these two unpatriotic, unprogressive, and myopic political parties that have stagnated us as a nation and people for six decades through the ballot box, come June 2023. (Author: Dr Saidu Bangura).
We need to educate our people about the evil plans of these two political parties to continue to keep most Sierra Leoneans poor and hungry; to continue to keep Sierra Leoneans and their unborn generations uneducated irrespective of the bogus human capital bla bla bla that we keep hearing about, and to continue to keep every Sierra Leonean dependent on them.
Let us change them and ban their most notorious thieves from ever taking us as their political and economic hostages again. Sixty-one years of the reign of these two enemies of Sierra Leone have not brought any sustainable economic and human development to our country and people.
Let us try other political actors that are not part of these chronic thieves that have deprived Sierra Leone and its people of everything, and that have divided Sierra Leoneans by politicizing our sociocultural and ethnolinguistic peaceful co-existence as a people. Enough is enough!
About the author
Dr Saidu Bangura is Director of Masters in English Studies: Linguistics and Language Teaching; Coordinator of Specialized Commission, Languages and Literature in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Humanities & Arts, at the University of Cabo Verde.