HOW PRES. KOROMA CAN LEAVE A UNIQUE PATRIOTIC LEGACY IN SL [Culled from the pioneering SALONEDiscussion forum on December 30, 2014] Dear [Name Redacted], With appreciation for your patience, I respond below to the very important issues raised in your reply to my article I posted on December 25, 2014. In that article, I respectfully suggested that Sierra Leones Pres. Ernest Koroma resign the presidency in the greater interest of the countrys urgent need for a more diligent leader during this time of grave danger to the future of our country. You asked: I do agree there needs to be a change, but my question to you is, If the president agrees to do what you suggest, (and I know that will never happen), Do you have a replacement ion mind? MY ANSWER: The short answer to your question is: no. The long answer is that your cogent question is one not for me to answer but for the people of Sierra Leone to answer through the constitutionally-mandated process for electing the president of SL. It is for that very reason that I suggested that, PRIOR to the effective date of Pres. Koromas resignation, he put in place the steps for facilitating the election of his replacement. I have emphasized below that key proviso in the relevant excerpt from my original posting: That patriotic act would be constituted by Pres. Koromas courageous voluntary resignation of the presidency after taking constitutionally-supported steps to facilitate immediate elections to hopefully make way for a more competent leader during this period of dire emergency that threatens the very survival of our country as a viable entity. See The Best Christmas Present Pres. Koroma Can Give Sierra Leoneans https://groups.yahoo/neo/groups/SALONEDiscussion/conversations/messages/38858 As regards the presumed (and valid) concern underlying your question, I can assure you that there are Sierra Leoneans who have demonstrated the superior leadership skills, competence, and patriotism required to perform a better job as president of SL than the incumbent. Indeed, I have worked with some of these Sierra Leonean gentlemen -- and, significantly, ladies. The challenge would be to convince them to enter the political arena that is the only legal route to the presidency of SL in this context. However, that challenge is not insurmountable. For example, I am aware that one of the challenges faced by competent Sierra Leoneans is one that you alluded to when you wrote: I also think that aside from finding good leadership, we should realize that bringing the countrys various tribes together, so that they can see themselves as one country, and not only as individual tribes. In short, tribalism and nepotism. Fortunately, if there is a silver lining to the Ebola crisis in SL, it is the potential to finally convince the majority of Sierra Leoneans (for it is probably impossible to do so for all of our compatriots) that their lives literally hinge on their making the right decision by electing only the most competent and patriotic Sierra Leonean as president during this most dangerous of times -- should President Koroma heed my respectful call and resign the presidency. That task would have been daunting under most circumstances. However, I believe that, sadly, such has been the horrific scale and undiscriminating nature of the devastation of the current Ebola crisis on individual Sierra Leoneans, that it has never been easier to convince them that they would literally die if they cling to another of their old habits -- electing leaders based on tribal affinity -- just as surely as they have been sadly dying when they continued their traditional burial practices in the current Ebola outbreak. That is a powerful message in the hands of a competent leader for obtaining the cooperation of the people. Tellingly, it is one that has been transparently ineffective in the hands of Pres. Koroma. The evidence of that is plain to see in the stubbornly high death and infection rates from the Ebola virus in SL, in contrast to those in Liberia and Guinea. So, to reiterate, now is the most opportune time for the most competent and patriotic leader to take advantage of the focused attention of all Sierra Leoneans on literally their own survival, to drastically change their mindset towards one that is more compatible with the NATIONAL development of our country. That competent and patriotic leader would become president if our country pays attention to what our own [Name Redacted] cogently reiterated in her reply here to our friend, [Name Redacted], yesterday -- education. A detailed discourse of the role of education in a countrys development is outside the scope of this discussion. Suffice it to say that evidence of the power of education to align the electorates thinking towards national development -- as distinct from personal aggrandizement -- is evident upon consideration of a well-known, sad fact about our own country. That fact is that the destruction of SLs enviable education system by Pres. Siaka Stevens played a major role in enabling that most unpatriotic leader of our country to successfully destroy the once bright future of Sierra Leone. Indeed, as I have publicly and consistently maintained in published writings and public lectures in SL, the U.K., and here in the U.S., over the past 35 years, the shortest road towards the restoration of the once bright future of our country is to reverse each and every one of the harmful policies foisted upon our country by the catastrophically destructive Pres. Siaka Stevens during his rampage in SL. The list is long. Undoubtedly, at the top of it is the single most destructive policy ever imposed in SL by our own SL govt. -- the devaluation of our once strong currency, the Leone. See, How the IMF Fooled the Sierra Leone Government into Impoverishing Sierra Leone news.sl/drwebsite/exec/view.cgi?archive=2&num=980 See also, How the World Bank Helped the IMF Impoverish Sierra Leone news.sl/drwebsite/exec/view.cgi?archive=2&num=1127&printer=1 But near the top of that list is education, followed closely by the restoration of the independence of the judiciary in SL that was cynically destroyed by Pres. Siaka Stevens in 1979 through his manipulation of the constitution of SL to guarantee the domination of other branches of government by the executive branch. Sadly, that is a sorry legacy and recipe for continued underdevelopment which has been continued by each and every civilian government of SL since the end of Stevens rampage, including the current government of Pres. Koroma. Cf. Re: [SALONEDiscussion] Siaka Stevens Destruction of the Doctrine of Separation of Powers in SL https://groups.yahoo/neo/groups/SALONEDiscussion/conversations/messages/38517 With your kind indulgence, [Name Recated], I will pause at this point in order not to try the patience of our readers. I will continue in Part 2 of my response. Not surprisingly, I will address therein the need to restore another of the valuable institutions that Pres. Siaka Stevens cynically destroyed -- local government -- in aid of his unpatriotic quest to elevate his relatively insignificant personal interest above the far more substantial interest of millions of Sierra Leonean victims of his impoverishing tenure. I would like to close on a personal note. My decision to respectfully ask Pres. Koroma to resign the presidency of our dangerously perched country at this point in the expanding Ebola crisis was not made lightly. Nor was it made maliciously. On the contrary, it was made for the best interest of our country. I will disclose that I have known Pres. Koroma since I was in my mid-teens. At the time, we were both students at Fourah Bay College (FBC) in the mid-1970s. He was two years my academic senior. He was in the Arts Faculty and I was in the Faculty of Economics. I knew him then to be a friendly, decent gentleman who demonstrated average intellectual capabilities. I did not much interact with him after he graduated in 1976 or so. However, upon my graduation in 1978, I would occasionally run into him in our small Freetown circle of friends that included my fellow Jenkins Street resident, Solomon Samba, former FBC Students Union President, Hindolo Trye, and other former fellow students at FBC. Ernest and I have always maintained mutual respect for each other during our rare encounters after our student days at FBC. We also demonstrated goodwill towards each other. Indeed, as Hindolo did for me when, over my protests, he characteristically kindly insisted that HE would come to my home here in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to collect and deliver some urgently-needed documents to my mother in Freetown in 1992, (now Pres.) Ernest Koroma did me a similar favor. In 2000 or so, he agreed to bring me documents that I urgently needed here in the U.S. from Freetown from our mutual longtime friend, Ms. Aminata Kallay (now the South African Consul in SL). Characteristically, even when he had to stopover in Belgium, Ernest ensured that he would complete the task he had assured Aminata he would accomplish by enterprisingly handing the papers to a Sierra Leonean lady from whom I collected the documents in Virginia in the nick of time. I have taken the risk of boring our readers with the above personal details in order to provide a context for my grave decision to ask my former college mate, and friend, Pres. Koroma, to do the right thing for our country at this most perilous stage in our history and resign the presidency for the greater good of our needlessly- and long-suffering people. Far from being a negative, such action taken by Pres. Koroma would be arguably the single most patriotic act by any president or leader in the history of post-independent SL. It would also be the most appropriate action given Pres. Koromas record in regard to the current Ebola crisis. That record is exemplified in the following analysis of the stark contrast between the respective reactions of the President of Gambia and President Koroma. It is a fact that to-date Gambia has not only recorded ZERO cases of Ebola deaths but NO ONE in Gambia has been infected by the disease. In sharp contrast, Sierra Leone under Pres. Koroma has seen more than 2,580 DEATHS from Ebola, more than 7,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of the disease, and total cases of more than 9,000. A substantially similar contrast can be made between the actions of Pres. Koroma and those of the presidents of Nigeria, Senegal and Mali. The inescapable conclusion, is devastating for the people of Sierra Leone: That Pres. Koroma, sadly, has clearly demonstrated that he simply does not know how to stop the spread of this deadly -- but entirely avoidable -- disease. Hence my respectful request that he resign the presidency so that the long- and needlessly suffering people of Sierra Leone can have a chance to replace him with a hopefully more competent leader in this very dire time for our country. I continue to hope that Pres. Koroma will put the far more important interest of millions of Sierra Leoneans who have been needlessly suffering during his tenure above his own interest. I am also counting on Pres. Koromas gentlemanly, humble, and moral character -- which, over the past 4o years or so, I have known him to demonstrate in various degrees -- to guide him to the right decision for our country. Sincerely, Mohm -----Original Message----- From: [Name Redacted] To: [Redacted] Sent: Sat, Dec 27, 2014 12:04 am Subject: Re: [SLPW] 5808 The Best Christmas Present Pres. Koroma Can Give Sierra Leoneans Dear Mohm I have read you article with interest, and wholeheartedly agree that nothing has changed as far as the governing of the country, since Independence. After Sir Milton, the country began its downward spiral like a tsunami wave, and now there is Ebola. I do agree there needs to be a change, but my question to you is, If the president agrees to do what you suggest, (and I know that will never happen), Do you have a replacement ion mind? This time around the voters must know the qualifications to look for in a good candidate, what to expect, and who the candidate might be. it seems to me finding such a person will take all of the current Presidents term in office to vet such a person and have the voters familiar with him or her and for us to be assured that his/her heart is in the right place. Otherwise we will find ourselves in the same rot we are in now. I also think that aside from finding good leadership, we should realize that bringing the countrys various tribes together, so that they can see themselves as one country, and not only as individual tribes. For now, too many people from the provinces see Freetown as Sierra Leone, and each tribal area as a country, without a clear understanding of the concept of a capital. That has to change. I have always thought that one way to do that is to move the administrative capital to somewhere in the middle of the country, so that all of the people understand that government is for everyone not just a handful of people. Working with the Traditional leaders, (the House of Chiefs) who already have the trust of their people and understand the culture and traditions, giving them the responsibility as chiefs to help their people understand what it means to be part of the greater country of Sierra Leone. They have shown their value as leaders during this Ebola crisis, and the government would be doing the country a big favor by recognizing their importance as leaders. [Name Redacted]
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 08:35:18 +0000
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