Re-branding the presidency

Is President Ernest Bai Koroma the leader of Sierra Leone or is he being led by a cabal whose interest is to perpetuate their individual aspirations at the detriment of the country?

Ernest Bai Koroma assumed leadership with the expectation that he is going to introduce a regime change. This change inspired a lot of Sierra Leoneans to wear red clothes and other paraphernalia proclaiming their support for the All People’s Congress. This support for a new leader generated an Ernestmania surge nationwide and even the international community was not left out as there was support for a regime change and Koroma was seen as the right man for the job.

In the euphoria of bringing in a new face to man the affairs of the nation, there was no time to checkmate those seen around the leader to be, it was an historic moment and everybody who wanted to be somebody was ready to be seen within the bandwagon. It was the time for change and the wind of change had already provided the signal with the appointment of Solomon Berewa as the flag bearer of the then ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party.

Ernest Koroma’s path to State House was paved with success stories and at the end of the day, what with few hitches encountered in diverse places, the hope of a new change in the political leadership became a reality. Ernest Bai Koroma was declared president of the Republic of Sierra Leone.

It was a day of great expectations, of merriment, of revelry and hope generated of better days again.

Two years after this great expectation, the reality is far from the vision as the government is failing. Apart from the ones who are close to the president, no one is celebrating anymore. The euphoria over Ernest Bai Koroma has dried up, his image of being the great hope for Sierra Leone has been dissipated by the fear that the present leader is like a latter day Joseph Saidu Momoh, with slight variations. The hope in Ernest Koroma, notwithstanding promises of Bumbuna electricity etc., etc., has not been a picture worth seeing.

With the exception of the active and suave Information Minister Alhaji I.B. Kargbo, the cabinet generally has been a cabal of square poles in round holes, brought together not because of what they can deliver, but their closeness to the presidency. Important ministries like health are manned by individuals who have neither training in the health sector nor do they have any knowledge on how to undertake their work in the first place. Going around closing ‘illegal’ clinics and ‘arresting’ pharmacy owners is not the solution. 

The same goes for the education and Sports Minister, a man who sees anything associated with the past minister as bad, and in the process the positive structures that the present government could have started from have been effectively destroyed.

While the Mines Ministry is in doldrums, the newly appointed minister, with the rather questionable title of ‘Presidential Affairs’ added to his portfolio, is seen as a wrong choice as he is more seen, like his predecessor, doing PR work for African Minerals, while failing to inform the nation of other companies like Sierra Rutile, Koidu Holdings and numerous other mining concerns.

Minister of Defense, the flamboyant Paolo Conteh is also a typical example of an appointment based on friendship and closeness to the powers that be rather than having the knowledge and the capacity of effectively undertaking the job of being a minister of government.

Before Joseph Saidu Momoh came out in the open to announce he had failed the nation, he went through a series of failed policies and a cabinet of misfits whose only credibility was their closeness to State House. It was a failure that later resulted in a war that before its end caused one of the worst atrocities in the history of human kind, shattered communities and generally caused the demise of a quarter of the population.

Is President Ernest Bai Koroma running out of options?

The president is surrounded by individuals whose accreditations consist of a questionable past, and these are individuals who manifest a negligible disposition where national interest exists. Most of them are in essence political opportunists, the type who had also grounded the government of Joseph Saidu Momoh and had later changed sides for the SLPP after supporting the Starasser/Bio junta when Momoh had been ignominiously booted out of town by soldiers barely out of their teens.

Now that the APC once unceremoniously chased out into the political wilderness, has returned, Sierra Leoneans are hoping that this time around, the focus will be more on rebranding their image from that of a power clinger, to that of an initiator of good governance.

Any diversion from this road map and a return to the old tricks and calumnies will not augur well for President Koroma’s chance of winning the next term.

A nation is not run like a business, and this is where the president got the footing wrong. Unlike a business where the profits are there to be shared by all, government is run through patriotism, and love and concern for the general good. Where we fall short to maintain this interest for the general good and instead see government as a business, then matters are liable to get out of hands and the good intentions of a leader disintegrating under the weight of nepotism and the influence of filial, religious, or regional bias.

President Ernest Bai Koroma should re-brand the image of the presidency.

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