18 April, 2008

Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden

Awareness Times, Freetown

SLPP Leaders Should Quit Now!

I have known Honourable Ibrahim Bundu (aka Bo School) of the ruling All Peoples' Congress (APC) for over ten years now.  He is quiet and does not much like the limelight.

He prefers to operate from the background, but make no mistake about his political skills.  I have watched him grow from a hesitant young man, deliberating about sacrificing his stable life in the USA, leaving his wife and kids behind; all to enter the unstable world of politics in Sierra Leone.  His sacrifice was even more poignant when it is taken in light of the fact that unlike the recent JC politicians who landed into a fait accompli situation, Bundu left America in 2001 to become a member of an Opposition that did not stand a chance in the 2002 Elections.

Today, he is one of the most powerful politicians in Sierra Leone but you will rarely see or hear him.  He practices a type of politics that is quiet but deadly in its precision.  One just needs to see how he floored his elder brother, Dr. Abass Bundu in the last elections to realize we are dealing with a politician par excellence in Hon. Ibrahim Bundu.

What he did yesterday in Parliament was technically correct but morally wrong and grossly unfair to the current Sierra Leone Peoples' Party (SLPP) MPs.  However, in politics, like in war, all is fair.  I submit that it was the fault of the SLPP to have not seen through the Sine Die adjournment for what it was until it was too late.  I also submit that if the SLPP had not been politically "fast asleep" over the last few months, there is no way they would have been muscled and bullied like it happened to them yesterday.

J.J. Saffa, U.N.S. Jah and Momoh Pujeh can deny all they like but today's SLPP is the sleepiest opposition this country has ever seen. They are so laissez faire that they make democracy BORING.  So boring this brings me to my point for today.  The opposition SLPP needs politicians with the mindset, skills and savvy of the likes of Ibrahim Bundu in their fold right now if this nation is to make any headway in the practice of the kind of democracy that we all would aspire towards.  It is not enough to call a press conference and grumble and grumble about how you have been bullied.  Oonar Hush Ya Oh  But what next?

I doubt if SLPP knows what next to do!  The present crop of SLPP leadership both inside Parliament and on a national level is quite frankly, LOST.  They are LOST and have no idea as to what direction to take.  Victor Foh once told me tongue in cheek that he was offering to teach them how to make themselves more viable.  I submit that what is needed is not really a Victor Foh, but a fresh crop of dynamic, forward looking, fast-paced, radical set of intelligent, hi-tech, YOUNG Opposition Politicians.  They do not even have to be loud.  Is Ibrahim Bundu loud?  Nope but he is efficient!  The country needs a radical, fast-thinking Opposition to keep the ruling APC on its toes and out of "trouble.”

All what the SLPP needs is a few Ibrahim Bundus.  The SLPP needs men and women who are born politicians and are ready to make the sacrifice to enter the wilderness of Opposition to make a change in this land.  But does the SLPP have such people of timber and caliber in its midst?  And if we wait until November 2008 to find out, will the SLPP not have been bullied and suppressed even more into a state of fatality that will be difficult to heal from?

There has been too much lackadaisical handling of the affairs of the SLPP.  Yesterday's brazen discarding of the SLPP's Private Members Motion was a carefully orchestrated strategy by the likes of the savvy Ibrahim Bundu.  I submit such a needless technical defeat of the SLPP MPs' position should serve as a wake-up call to the SLPP General Membership that their leaders are too sleepy for the party's good.

Secretary General J.J. Saffa, and Chairman U.N.S. Jah, should immediately realize that they are LOST and do not have any more moral authority to lead.  They should call for a National Convention as soon as possible.

And whilst at it, I am calling on SLPP MPs to replace Hon. Momoh Pujeh with someone like Hon. Elizabeth Lavalie or Hon. Bernadette Lahai.  Your constituents who elected you into office deserve better than what Momoh Pujeh is offering.

If you leave the sleepy Momoh Pujeh as your leader in Parliament, you are betraying those who elected you, and by 2012, those who elected you in will remove you at the ballot box for giving this nation a sleepy minority leader when vibrant alternatives abounded.

SLPP deserves more.

Sierra Leone deserves more.

We deserve more than this kind of 'water-wash' democracy we are wallowing in!

Solomon Berewa did the honorable and right thing by quitting the leadership when he was called upon to do so and it is high time J.J. Saffa and U.N.S. Jah showed some honorable muscles on their political bones.

Saffa especially should be honest enough to admit that though he is loyal and means well for SLPP, he is overworked and thus unproductive!!

J.J. Saffa is the National Secretary General, J.J. Saffa is the Publicity Secretary, J.J. Saffa is the Organising Secretary, J.J. Saffa is the Spokesman, J.J. Saffa is the this, and J.J. Saffa is the that.  Saffa cannot sustain these multiple roles until November 2008.

Call a National Convention now to save the SLPP and by extension, save Sierra Leone's democracy.

Stay tuned. More Anon!

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