Last Friday’s VP visit to Mandopolahun
The honourable Vice President Sam Sumana is a citizen of Sierra Leone and a member of the All Peoples Congress (APC) party. We know that he and his party are more than desperate to get a foothold in Kailahun district by whatever means. As Vice President it is his right and prerogative to visit any part of the country at any given time. But the honorable gentleman and his advisers must also be aware that there is such a thing as expediency. Was it expedient for the second gentleman of the land to have attempted to visit Mandopolahun in Constituency 04, Kissi Tongi chiefdom, knowing full well that the day for political campaigning in the township had been allocated to the Peoples Movement for Democratic Change, (PMDC)? Like his boss, when and wherever the Vice President travels in this country he moves with a large entourage. In his case this usually includes a number of Paramount Chiefs from the Kono district. In addition there is the usual administrative and security apparatus. So whose idea was it that the honourable VP should visit at that particular moment in time? (Photo: Dr Sama Banya)
On an equally serious note, when he joins the campaign trail, like all APC operatives he can’t help making provocative statements that invite vigorous responses which may not befit his status. But if he makes a reckless and irresponsible statement like the SLPP having being in office for eleven years without doing anything for the people, my response would be that he is talking through his hat.
What about all the schools and health centres in that area, who put them there? What about all the rehabilitation work completed? What about the unique innovation of the SLPP which was a strategy for poverty reduction which the VP’s APC have abandoned in the area? I refer to the Girl-child education programme of the SLPP under which any girl child who was successful in the national NPSC examination was automatically the recipient of a government scholarship up to JSS 3. It included free school uniform, free supply of exercise and prescribed text books and sporting materials and cash.
The VP in his address in Buedu on Monday, promised the people a Utopia. I could not help but laugh when he mentioned road construction. Sir, what is the progress on the Kenema to Pendembu road project AFTER 30 MONTHS, a project for which the funds were solicited by the SLPP government? Why is the VP’s government so silent on the strange story by the rogue Korean contractors who claim that the original plan of the road, including alignments, culverts etc. were faulty and that they had now taken them back to the drawing board? Who picks up the tag for the extra cost? As I type the project has not even got as far as Tissor village which is only three miles from Kenema.
The Vice President has promised the people everything including Mosques and Churches and that is the story he has taken to Mandopolahun itself. It would have been a big joke if it were not such a serious matter. Here is a government through whose mis-magement rice is selling in the area at Le190,000 to almost Le 200,000.per 50 kilogram bag; fuel is being sold in the area at Le 15,000 per liter, that is when it is available. How could the VP be making all those promises to these poor people who live so far away from Freetown? And in any case why now, barely three days to polling day if it is not naked bribery? But this a government that doesn’t play by the rules.
The people of this country have woken up to a rude realization that it is a government of platitudes. We were promised 24 hours clean and uninterrupted electricity to the city; one has only to listen to the lamentations of the people. And now we are being placated with the propaganda of 350MW as a supplement to Bumbuna; it’s a laugh believe me to talk about 350 MW when you can’t deliver 25MW. The honourable VP can rest assured that by the time he gets back to Freetown, we would have reduced his propaganda to shreds.
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