With the people of Constituency 04

By the time you read this the bye election result of Constituency 04, Kissi Tongi chiefdom in the Kailahun district would have been known. Baring the usual APC election “yuki yuki” the result is a foregone conclusion. The opposition SLPP would have retained the seat despite the millions of Leones poured into the constituency by the ruling government party. Yes, they lavished money like it was simply falling down from a tree. As if that was not enough the honourable Vice President Alhaji chief Sam Sumana had paid THREE visits over three days to Mandopolahun, a very strategic and densely populated town in the constituency. As had been expected he lashed out at the failure of the previous SLPP government to develop the constituency and outlined the difference that the APC government intended to make. If it included making the lives of the people better, it was received with general cynicism.  (Photo: Dr Sama Banya)

Here were a people paying through their nose for everything including rice, plus the unacceptably high price of fuel etc. I had with me the Tuesday edition of some tabloids which carried admission from the minister of information and communication that “yes, tin tranga.” Poor honourable Vice President, he could not see that every section of the chiefdom including Mandopolahun already boasted a school and a health centre with three secondary schools in Buedu.

When the people who are mainly Muslims, asked for assistance to construct a new mosque, he said they should see him after the bye election. One needn’t be a genius to read the meaning of that reply which could only be “yes, I’ll build your mosque if we win, otherwise you can forget it.”

That not withstanding he is reported to have made a generous public donation of five hundred thousand Leones to the people. I wonder how much other money passed under the table.

I came across the Vice President’s motorcade just outside Segbwema when I counted 23 vehicles, including the security vans. With my disdain for figures, even I could calcute the colossal sum spent on fuel alone. The people of Mandopolahun I was to learn later, had nothing but contempt for the newest APC recruit the honourable Tamba Bobor-Sawyer who they alleged had ridiculed them on radio as well as in newspaper columns as being KORMANDES and strangers in the chiefdom. They were not amused that he and his boss were now trying to woe them with money.

It was interesting to hear the expression “MEMEI GBA KULAMEI GBA” but in Mende this time. One Buedu resident described the honourable deputy minister of health as ungrateful; though hailing from the chiefdom he was little known and didn’t even have a dwelling house of his own there but had lived under Comfort Kabbah’s roof and currently in Bobby Baryoh’s house.  The current SLPP candidate Sahr Fatorma and Comfort Kabbah had persuaded a skeptical population to back his candidacy and conducted his campaign. His inspired APC candidate, the forced-to-retire Colonel Falla Sewa was no better as he too did not have a dwelling house of his own anywhere in the chiefdom. Already Bobor-Sawyer nearly caused a commotion when he attempted to bring ‘migrant’ voters from neighbouring Liberia into constituency 04. My gut feeling is that the APC would only triumph in the presence of massive electoral fraud which seems unlikely because of the determination of the SLPP to watch their every movement with a dissecting lens.

Whatever the results of the poll, Puawui would like to congratulate Inspector-General of Police Francis Munu for his personal effort to redeem the notorious reputation of the police who have always turned the other way or were part of the problem in election irregularities. He accompanied the very large and intimidating heavily armed OSD police team to constituency 04. He addressed a well attended public meeting of candidates and their supporters. He tried to allay the fears of the people who had been told that a large OSD force would be there to intimidate them and thereby force most of them to abandon voting and to flee. He allowed each of the four candidates to briefly address the gathering which itself reduced any existing tension. But they say, “Once bitten twice shy.” The people expressed concern at the very large presence of such a force in a small one-chiefdom constituency and advised the IG to do some effective reassuring sensitization exercise before the polls. While consenting to do that Munu opined that the political parties themselves ought to undertake such an important exercise. A professional journalist and civil society activist Falla Ensa-Dema who had traveled in the IG’s team undertook to carry out the exercise.

That not withstanding Puawui does not believe that it is over until it is over. However the cordial relationship among the parties, apart from the earlier ugly unprovoked attack on the SLPP constituency chairman by the APC’s Amara, the cordial relationship among the parties was unusually encouraging. I was a witness to some of that.

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