VP, First Lady and the Kono APC Ticket

All by themselves, the Vice President Alhaji Sam-Sumana and First Lady Sia Nyama Koroma are no political figures in Kono District and could pull no hard poll on the Kono electoral ticket in the name of APC which to the Kono people from time in memorial is a hostile and foreign political party.

Kono-i-KonoFaa

The only thing that made them who they are today, is the Kono sentimentalism Kono-i-Konofaa meaning ‘the interest of Kono comes first’ or what may be referred to as Konoism. To many in the District, Sam-Sumana is not even a politician, they know him as businessman, to the Konos, the days of APC were long gone and forgotten. The All People’s Congress was only remembered by the people of Kono for its tyranny and thuggery. The Sierra Leone People’s Party took over affairs in the District even before APC met its death in the mid to late 80s.

More than everywhere in the country, the APC tyranny was more akin to Kono District and the people of Kono for obvious reasons; they were subject of persecution and ruthless political machinations.

The first rounds of the past 2007 general elections gave evidence to this truth. Even Sam-Sumana lost in his constituency, beaten by an SLPP who possesses not even a one hundredth of the VPs wealth and aura. Sure sign that APC was as good as dead in the District.

The APC Breakthrough

The breakthrough the APC ticket made in the District that accounted for the massive Kono votes in the 2007 victory only came in when the tie that saw the District’s votes as the only thing standing in the way of Samuel Sam-Sumana to becoming vice President and Madam Sia Nyama Koroma as First Lady; all of which in the view of the Kono People was to give more credence and stake to the District in National Governance. This view was spread through and through by the APC campaign team headed by the Vice President and a host of others who believed in the theory of Kono-i-Konofaa.

Being the most affected and neglected District in country after the ten year brutal and senseless war, the theory that it’s only a Kono led government that will rescue the District from the many plaguing problems the people of the land have been facing. The people took the bait, they went in for a big swoop and all of the sudden, SLPP which took an unmistakable lead in the first rounds of the elections now was trailing behind the APC in the run-off and the APC won the District, won the National Ticket to rule and Sam-Sumana was Vice President, Sia Nyama Koroma was First Lady. If what political proponents say that politics is interest, then I see that there could be no better interest for the Kono people than to bring one of theirs to the spotlight of being Vice President and at the same time producing the first and second lady of the country.

The Turn Around and Disappointment  

To the disappointment of the people of Kono which has been registered in a countless number of occasions, the good they saw in camping their tent with the APC in the name of protecting the ‘konomokwe’ (interest of the Konos) has come crashing on boulder rocks as the wings on which they hung their hopes on seems to have dropped them in reckless abandon. Every where you go in Kono, people register ghastly pictures of poverty, lack of health care services, even primary and essential service of protected and treated water supply is a far cry for the people in the city of Koidu; talk least of farer isolated places.

A visit to the District would have any genuine citizen of the once milk and honey land fighting to control the spill of your bile when you see manifest exhibition of life at its lowest.

On the ground assessment would have you see that more than 80% of under five  children are malnourished, emaciated and in need of some kind of intensive medical care.

Infrastructure is a big void; added to the thousand of once glimmering houses that now lay in ruins after a systematic burning of every house in the city of Koidu and surrounding towns and villages (that never benefited from the infrastructural rehabilitation after the war), the remainder of what could be called infrastructure is now on the verge of total collapse.   

There is no one you can actually talk to in Koidu city and surrounding villages that wont link the current plague on the people of Kono with the failure of the Vice President, the First Lady and the President of the Republic to adhere to the many promises of reconstructing the District infrastructure, return protected water supply and sanitation for the people, rebuild the lost homes of the people and make health care service delivery a reality for them.

What is even more sickening is that the people have now been made to carry the perception that they have been used by the VP and First Lady for their political and economic aggrandizement, leaving the welfare of the people to languish in anguish. A touching statement by a District Councillor nearly left me in search of answers: “we know the VP and the First Family have a vested interest in certain things in the District which to us is only human; but that is inhuman is to  put those interest above those that we have all been sworn to serve and protect”.  

I couldn’t go back to the Vice President for answers, in an earlier conversation with me, he had categorically told me “I am not into politics to make money, I came here to serve my people, I have no business going on for me, I divested myself from all running business I had immediately I was made Vice President of the Republic!”

The only option I am left with in the fight to make a case for the Kono people; who I am intricately part of is to try proving the VP’s position and or having him make more proactive moves towards the welfare of the people of his descent.

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