CULLED FROM ANOTHER SLPP WHATSUP GROUP;;;;A Reminder of the things - TopicsExpress



          

CULLED FROM ANOTHER SLPP WHATSUP GROUP;;;;A Reminder of the things Maada did before he bring the SLPP to power.. MAADA BIO, BRUTUS, STRASSER AND JULIUS CAESERby ALEX ALEX - Sierra Leone Issues- Facebook 16 July 2013 ; 13:48 Maada Bio Captain Valentine Strasser Back then in 1996, Bio overthrew his boss Valentine Strasser on the pretext that the latter wanted to cling to power beyond the stipulated time (Strasser’s own explanation was that he had categorically stated that he would go, and so Bio decided to step in). Bio had insisted that Strasser had an ambition to overstay in power. But the questions then lingering on the minds of the public were: Was it not Strasser, out of his own volition, even at a time when people were calling him ‘the redeemer’; that came out with a timeline, insisting that they would hand over power within three years? Did Strasser not follow the guidelines through by forming the Independent National Electoral Commission? Did Strasser not establish the National Commission for Democracy and appointed Dr. Kadie Sesay to be its head? Did James Jonah, the Chief Electoral Commissioner, not sound very confident about Strasser’s sincerity to the democratic process just days before he was overthrown? Did Strasser not lift the ban on the 1991 Constitution and on all political activities? Did he not preside over the registration of up to seventeen political parties including the APC and the SLPP which many were calling to be banned? When the junta decided to form a political party called the National Unity Party (NUP), was it not John Karimu – instead of Strasser - that was put forward as presidential candidate? If Strasser was that ambitious, why did he not reduce the age minimum requirement that disqualified him from the contest in the first place? Yet, as Mark Anthony would say of Brutus in relation to Caesar (“You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious…”), Bio said Strasser wanted to hijack the democratic process. But the central question for Bio was, ‘how’? How did Strasser want to derail the process? Did he call Bio into a room and told him about it? If that was the case, why did Bio not act until that fateful day of 16 January 1996 after Strasser had overseen the passing-out ceremony of new recruits of the then Sierra Leone Army at Bengeuma Training Centre, where he categorically stated that they were going out of office, warning the soldiers to henceforth stay away from politics and stick to their constitutional duties? Why was it that just after that speech, Maada Bio and his henchmen summoned a Supreme Council meeting, insisting that it should not be held at State House but at Cockeril military headquarters, where they lured Strasser, captured him (still dressed in the same uniform he wore at the passing-out ceremony), handcuffed him, and dumped him in Guinea? How, just how, did Strasser want to derail the democratic process that warranted a most ignominious treatment at the very hands of those whom he had given more power than he had retained for himself (just imagine promoting Bio from a mere Lieutenant to Brigadier General within four years, while Strasser - a very modest man - merely retained his Captain rank throughout)? MAADA BIO’S TRAGIC FLAW IS OVER-AMBITION Maada Bio is a real Shakespearean tragic hero. His fundamental flaw is vaulting ambition. And he’ll never realise it – not helped by an array of self-made advisers - until the bitter reality dawns. The bitter reality that will dawn on him on November 17 and beyond. He suffered a similar fate in 1996…. Because, after the people had realised that Bio’s overthrowing of Strasser was a charade and a self-seeking enterprise to perpetuate himself in power when he initiated a ‘peace before elections’ campaign at the eleventh hour, seeking a postponement of the elections; after the people realised that all along Bio had a very healthy relationship with the rebel RUF because his elder sister was one of the strongest pillars of that movement, and with whom he was now colluding by pretending to be bringing peace so that both brother and sister could have been two of the most powerful rulers of Sierra Leone; when the people realised that Bio had awarded fake contracts for helicopter spare parts and military hardware to his brother who never delivered the arms when we needed them most in fighting the rebels, with allegations that these arms were actually supplied to the rebels; when the people actually saw Bio buying delegates for the postponement of the elections; and even when Bio issued a statement at Bintumani II categorically not guaranteeing security on polling day; yet still the people of Sierra Leone rose to the occasion, sacrificing limb and life to deny Bio’s ambition from going through. They overwhelmingly rejected the ‘peace before elections’ charade at Bintumani and went ahead with the elections, even when Bio’s boys – true to his ‘no security guarantee’ promise - disrupted some parts of the voting by shooting at Wilberforce Barracks and in Bo. On the same Election Day, the RUF, of which Bio’s sister was leader, cut fingers of voters mainly in the Northern Province for not accepting Bio’s ‘peace before elections’. TEJAN KABBAH PUTS THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE: BIO’S CHARADE No one has put it more succinctly than President Tejan Kabbah in his book ‘Coming Back From The Brink in Sierra Leone’. He wrote “The NPRC junta having enjoyed the fruits of power for four years clearly demonstrated that it was not interested in holding any elections at that particular time. It mounted and orchestrated a campaign with the slogan peace before elections. Through this campaign, the NPRC even attempted to ingratiate itself with the RUF by demonstrating to the latter that it was prepared to delay the holding of elections and would forge a power-sharing arrangement with the RUF…..Again, in order to prove its point that elections would not be held successfully before peace was achieved, the junta orchestrated acts of terror and intimidation of the electorate in several parts of the country just before and during the elections…. In spite of the on-going rebel war, and notwithstanding the defiance of those who wanted to prolong military rule by vehemently advocating peace-before-elections, Sierra Leoneans following two national consultative conferences (Bintumani I and Bintumani II) took the courageous decision to go to the polls February 1996 to choose a President and Members of Parliament. There were a number of disturbances initiated by the anti-democratic elements aimed at disrupting the elections…” Obviously, Maada Bio handed over power reluctantly and grudgingly (to quote President Kabbah’s common-knowledge statement) but not before causing the government to pay him huge sums of money while benefiting from a UN sweetener scholarship which was the carrot that backed the people’s mobilisation stick to pressurise him out of power. PEOPLE’S POWER: A MOMENT TO RELISH The people of Sierra Leone generally enjoyed the momentum then. For a people to remove a desperate army from power, with literally their bare hands, was a relishing moment – that goes beyond borders. Our country took the international spotlight. That sequence of events raised our profile internationally as a people ready to move forward as a collective democratic force. Bio went away from the scene with the loot. He squandered all abroad, returned home and took some ‘condom’ contract before he challenged Solomon Berewa for the leadership of the SLPP in 2007 – asking the party to fulfil its own part of the contract they entered into to deny the UNPP’s John Karefa-Smart the victory in favour of the SLPP’s Tejan Kabbah in 1996, a school of thought holds. SLPP SUCCUMBS AND MORTGAGES PARTY TO JUNTA MEN The SLPP succumbed in 2011 during a delegates’ conference that invoked voodoo-ism, tribalism, and intimidation. But the people of Sierra Leone had told Bio in no uncertain terms that they did not want him to be their leader. He has not listened. But he will listen. (E nor wan yeri word -o, e go yeri word). REPEATING THE 1996 FEAT IN 2012 – A RE-MIX It
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 17:43:44 +0000

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