SLPP discourages investors?

The recent press attacks on Vice President Sam-Sumana and the ruling All People’s Congress government of President Ernest Bai Koroma has opened a Pandora’s Box of counter accusations with the Sierra Leone People’s Party being accused of destroying the international reputation of the country in the eyes of potential investors because of political rile and mischievousness.

Brima Michael Turay has joined the debate in pointing out that the activities of the SLPP has now gone top gear in destroying any chance Sierra Leone might have in wooing investors to set up business, and has accused John Benjamin of being the leader in the dubious work of helping to scare away investors from the country by maligning President Koroma, Vice President Sam-Sumana and other senior officials in the ruling government. Read on:

Why would anyone be surprised if you go to the New People Online Newspaper and see a story titled “Ernest Koroma’s Vice President—A Thieving Fraudster Scams $350,000 from an Elderly Arkansas Couple?” The above headline is no different from previous headline in the same newspaper such as “Sierra Leone’s Battered Image as APC Political Violence Worsens…” or “President Embraces his Loko roots as he Disowns the claim to being Temne” or “Ernest Koroma went to Kingtom power station for an Orchestrated Deception in Sierra Leone”. Do all of these headlines sound familiar? Of course, they do, and they all come from the SLPP “Reputation Assassins”–The New People Online Newspaper! Let me give fellow Sierra Leoneans some reasons and basic facts about why you should not lose a minute’s sleep over some of these frivolous comments and allegations coming from the New People Newspaper.

In a letter to the president, dated 12, November 2009 and titled “Major Governance and Development Concerns”, the issue about Vice President Sam Sumana’s litigation was the first, out of thirteen, to be brought up by Mr. John Benjamin. Mr. Benjamin and his SLPP supporters must have found this as a most important topic that their “SLPP Ariyogbo” must vigorously pursue; but it seems the said “Ariyogbo” lacks the spiritual Talismans or “Saweh”, as Sierra Leoneans would call it, to quantify and qualify the witch-hunting process.

Let Mr. Benjamin and his supporters understand that a mere indictment, as Lawyer Iscandri would help us understand, is something that goes with criminality and cannot be tied to civil offenses, as the case of the Vice President would come to be seen, if, in fact, the allegations were true. Even if it were an indictment, just standing alone by itself is not enough to justify a conviction. The burden of proof lies squarely on the shoulders of the claimants and their team of attorneys. Mr. Benjamin, in all of the other allegations in the said letter claimed that the SLPP have strong evidence. However, he did not mention that he, or anyone in his camp, has proof of a bribe of $350,000 that he alleged was given to the Vice President so that he may use his good office to offer and curry favors for and on behalf of the two couples/business partners. Do you catch the joke?

Mr. Benjamin is calling for a statement from president Koroma regarding this issue. What Mr. Benjamin has failed to understand is that during an ongoing investigation, especially one that involves litigation outside of Sierra Leone, the last thing you, as the president, want to do is make public comments while the investigations are still going on. It jeopardizes the investigations, if any, and sometimes prejudges the persons involved in the matter. Unlike you, Mr. Benjamin, President Koroma does not make allegations without reasonable and probable cause and does not convict without trial.

I, and many other Sierra Leoneans, know the honourable Vice President. He is an upright and a highly disciplined individual who would not compromise his integrity for some piece of change like $350,000 or anything else that Mr. Benjamin is alleging in this letter.

How do we know if the honourable vice president fell out with the couple who are involved in this matter simply because they could not stand his strictness and straightforward way of doing things? How do we know if the vice president is merely acting in the interest of his country, Sierra Leone? How do we even know if this is not the work of a disgruntled individual or individuals who may want to smear the image of the vice president by becoming so mendacious for the sake of political servitude?

Because we do not know the answers to these questions, and because we need to get the facts of the matter, it is but fair and sensible to wait for the full details of the allegations before we jump into such deprecatory conclusions.

I can understand the alacrity with which Mr. Benjamin and his supports try to bring forward what seems to them like a strong case against the honourable vice president. What I do not understand is why they would think the rest of the world should jump into hasty conclusions in a matter that requires a high level of serenity. By his own admission, as stated in his letter to the president, Mr. Benjamin revealed that the international community withheld funding to Sierra Leone in 2006 and describes the move as an erroneous belief by the international community that the SLPP would use the funds to finance the 2007 elections.

Every other thing that the International community did for Sierra Leone between 2000 and 2006 was good for the SLPP but the withholding of funds in 2006, because the International community beats the SLPP to its game, was described by Oponjo Benjamin as erroneous. Mr. Benjamin also stated that the support to Sierra Leone by the International community was resumed right after the elections in 2007. Perhaps the most disgraceful statement by Mr. Benjamin is this one: “Again, in 2006, the SLPP Government’s request to the UN and the World Bank to restore power to Freetown did not receive an enthusiastic response. In 2007 the same request was granted to enable your administration deliver on its campaign promise of bringing electricity to Freetown in 100 days.

Why would the International community trust the new government and not the old administration that it had had dealings with for the past 11 years? Do you catch another joke? As part of his opening comments in the letter to the president, Mr. Benjamin would have this to say: “Let me start by assuring Your Excellency of our Party’s fullest support to any endeavour that will take our country out of its current economic difficulties to thriving economy”. This is not good enough Mr. Benjamin if your only hope of winning the 2012 elections for the SLPP is banked on scaring investors and good friends of Sierra Leone by perpetrating propaganda of heightened rape, corruption and armed robberies allegedly condoned by the ruling APC party.

As a citizen in our republic, Mr. Benjamin has the right to bring forward any allegations as long as he has the evidence to support such allegations. What he does not have the right to do is use such allegations to score political points and to scare away our good friends and investors around the world.

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