I think by now we all know what the issues in our country are, but my plea to those who have any shred of love for our traumatised nation, is to please stand up and be counted. It is a known fact that when history is made, the protagonists rarely know the consequences of the chain of events they unleash.
The nauseous desperation and glibness of some political zealots who are ready to sacrifice the national aspirations and interests in pursuit of their obsession for power looks like some people are hell bent on turning serious societal issues into a peer-polling thingy.
In virtually every facets of our lives, there are now very few acts devoid of subjective ideological, ethnic and personal colourations of our collective purpose on one hand and our separate grassroots realities on the other.
But we must refuse to be bondsmen to failure. We must cease to let the man-made political hiccups of our country take over our life and thinking. We must stop bowing to the grand display of emptiness and deception. If not, Sierra Leone will forever remain a theatre of dreams only.
Let us start thinking deep about how to truly liberate our nation from the cabals holding the country by the jugular; those within and outside the ruling and emerging political groupings that are hell-bent on decimating our collective psyche.
Indications are that there are several twists and turns ahead before we go to the polls next year (if at all).
However, amidst the deep rooted indignation and the three-dimensional frustration of the generality of the people in the approach to 2018, which the present administration is dictating with the urgency of a sleeping tablet, has anybody spotted the bucket of water balanced on the top of our political dormitory-doorway?
Have you noticed how we are gradually re-opening the bitter wounds of the past? Have you noticed that even the educated, politically-suave amongst us, signpost faith and still expect things to work as they would in a perfectly operating environment come next year?
We are all looking the other way and then ready to cry when the expected happens.As we grope into the darkness of a dismal political space, we are unable to fathom the depth of our dire political space.
Forget the deceptive faint hope of a messiah; the dysfunctional system that we keep massaging is simply turning up ‘leaders’ devoid of political creativity in an air silent with gloom and resignation at all the shenanigans cropping up.
This is further buttressed by the deafening silence from so-called agents of change in challenging the series of illegalities and flaws inherent in the 2018 electoral process so far.Rather they seem more pre-occupied with the desperate bid to occupy the highest post in the land without seeing the fat lady back stage singing the dirge.
As the increasing despotic tendency of the current incumbent kick away the last prop behind the 10-year façade of agendas for change and prosperity, we are gradually arriving at the edge of uncertainty.
But Ernest Koroma ain’t responsible for the dismal state of things. Nor is it the political system per se. Guilty, is a willingly exploited and emasculatedpeople who’ve lost their voices while succumbing to the sweet tongues of predators.
Those that we look up to, to ensure integrity is viable, have a different mindset and yet, in our yearning to reach Utopia, we are unaware of the reality that surrounds us whilst on this journey.
We have to be sincere to ourselves. We can’t wish away that, which we continue to invoke by our very actions and inactions. To live in denial is as old as history and it shows, with evidence that the consequences can come home to roost.
Those who purport to be the new agents of change aren’t really talking about the inherent challenges and obstacles in driving the process nor show a new mindset and thought- process.
Firstly, in the time of our darkness, they never spoke up. In the face of absolute tyranny, they never protested. In a time of so many stifling socio-political end economic conventions, they never had the voice or grace to speak out against the excesses of government or the pain of the people.
How then do we really expect much to change in the next dispensation?What are we really expecting from a group whose culpability and vicarious liability is part and parcel of the mess that envelopes us?
When a piece of wood is internally devoured by wood worm; what is the remedy? Obviously, it is the total destruction of the wood so that other pieces will not be affected.
Truth is: for our land to enjoy its glory it has to be reborn. Total annihilation of the evils of the present; newness of purpose and selflessness must be pursued. We truly need a new set of leadership and not another group of ideological vacuum flasks with legs.
Failure to do so, in the light of the present day Sierra Leone, with its attendant poverty, unemployment, poor education, lack of good infrastructure, corruption and bad leadership can only lead to devastation of immense proportions. Sad but true.
The parties which are supposed to be engines of progress have shown by their handling of the selection process, even among coalition groups, that they are nothing but terrifying examples of the clueless reliance on platitudes and personalities as agents of our implementing service units and the drive for a new beginning.
The madness of our governance and polity is symbolised by the continued grovelling to party hijackers and self-absorbing symbols of change which exposes a fatal blind spot in our society and our failings to grasp the enormity of our scandalous decadence amidst stinkingly rich natural resources.
Today the six o’clock faces of the ambassadors of poverty, parading our streets embody the terrible pain in the monstrous deception that has and continues to be our broken and disastrous nation.
They are a reminder that very few of us are still proud of a nation that fails its citizens and where poverty is accelerating down the slope like a car out of control.
You cannot pick and choose parts of the water in a basin; neither can you put boxers in the striker’s position of a football team just because they are champion pugilists.
So far no party or grouping has democratically, in the true sense of the word, chosen its flag bearer. Everywhere it is coronation and a charade of a convention process which denies the people a true choice.
The current muddled up political atmosphere is fast becoming a metamorphosis of gross impunity and madness. Not only does it shield the cross fertilisation of ideas and political exchange in the search for the panacea for our woes, it is a shocking celebration of mediocrity.
And you know what, it is a shame on all of us. Especially those who prefer the salacious character assassinations that flood social media, than educating or trying to deliver the masses from bondage.
It is what had made us slam the door against common sense and open the window for stupidity in the form of the current crop of leaders etching their names on the dark pages of people’s lives and feelings.
With their pre-emptive thinking which continues to give them the needed leverage, critical thinking which is a bit more difficult when all you do is benchmark yourself against a mediocre past and performers, is being denied the masses who are busy running a rat race like someone in the circus ring.
However, cloning without context usually results in poor results; as recent political events confirm my submissions and beliefs that whoever emerges as flag bearer of any political group and eventually end up as Sierra Leone’s next President will simply be an old problem in a new mask.
Be the first to comment