Kailahun to fake APC?
Regular readers of this column may recall that I have occasionally quoted Richard Brimsley Sheridan. In his “School for Scandal” Lady Teazle says, “The heart that is conscious of its own integrity is ever slow to credit another’s treachery.” Why do people attempt to create problems and suspicion where none exists? Why this penchant for sycophancy and mischief making on the part of the African Champion newspaper? It is because of the likes of writers like them that I often amend Sheridan’s quotation to read, “The heart that is conscious of its own baseness and treachery is ever slow to credit another’s integrity.” By this, I mean that if one is evil minded, hypocritical or is a sycophant, he or she would always imagine that other people’s intentions or actions are like theirs.  Anyone who has little or no respect for truth always has the tendency to transfer his or her notoriety to the best intention of others. It is acknowledged that the African Champion always plays up to President Ernest Bai Koroma’s APC, no matter how wretched the situation or condition of the people. President Koroma had decided a long time ago that he would visit Kailahun district. The President is well aware of the voting figures of the district, including Christiana Thorpe’s “Kailahun Court Barry-VOID!” figures. But, he is the President of Sierra Leone and its citizens, no matter who voted or who didn’t vote for him. On his first official visit to Kenema, the chairman of the Council of Paramount chiefs of the district, Alhajie Mohamed Sama Kailondo Banya on behalf of his colleagues, extended an invitation to his Excellent to visit; an invitation which the President graciously accepted.
During the President’s Kenema visit to attend the PMDC convention I paid a courtesy call on him and he confirmed his intention to visit Kailahun after launching the construction of the Kenema-Pendembu road.
Yesterday’s front page of the African Champion newspaper carried the following headline- “Kailahun to fake APC.” Accompanied by photographs of the opposition chairman John Benjamin and a beaming Puawui. The accompanying story was that the people of the district in their welcome would turn out in large numbers in the red colours of the APC in order to deceive President Koroma by creating the impression that they were with him etc.
In short that in spite of the above preamble we planned to give his Excellency a false sense of his acceptance by the district. Why do we have to do that and whom shall we be fooling? President Koroma and the APC won a number of votes in various constituencies but even he is aware that Kailahun district is a backbone of the SLPP and nobody has to deceive him. A rider to this is that those who are now giving the impression to his Excellency that he has won over the district were all candidates in the 2007 Parliamentary elections as well as in the 2008 local government elections of 2008. They lost hopelessly; so who is fooling whom Mr. Editor of the African Champion?
From what I heard on the radio and then read in the State House press release yesterday, his Excellency is angry, very angry with his ministers and their subordinates. Someone confided in me that at one stage he was worried that the normally charismatic and charming EBK would go through the ceiling during his tirade. I am amazed that the President allowed things to deteriorate to that extent, because in addition to there being no sacred cows, his next very strong resolution on September 17, 2007 was “ZERO TOLERANCE TO CORRUPTION!” It was said in the presence of everyone including members of the diplomatic and international community. With all the information and documentary evidence in his possession one would have thought that he would go straight for the kill. But the miscreants and their accomplices have been warned and that from a determined President is serious enough.
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