News Story

FREETOWN: MEMUNATU SHERIFF: There is no proof that Sierra Leone’s September 2007 presidential run-off elections were not rigged particularly when the Chief Electoral Commissioner, Christiana Thorpe, has since not been able to prove by way of publishing polling station figures to substantiate her claims of over-voting at 477 stations, a claim she used as the basis for her declaration of Ernest Bai Koroma as President.

When public and media pressures were being mounted for her to publish the figures, Christiana Thorpe instead defiantly responded by dissolving the official website of the National Election Commission (NEC), thus closing the doors of international public access to election information on Sierra Leone, thereby desecrating the most important pillar - franchise - on which democracy stands by all international standards.

Yet the international community – through their representatives in Sierra Leone – decided to ignore this recipe for reversals in the country’s hard won peace gains on which the governments they represented have invested enormously. Certain diplomats were particularly so emotional about a regime change agenda in Sierra Leone that their judgments failed to guide the foreign policies of the commendable governments and institutions they represented on what lay ahead in terms of the risks they were creating for their countries’ political and economic investments in Sierra Leone.

As Christ said “by their fruits ye shall know them”, the results are now showing glaringly on the ground. On all fronts ranging from economic performance, fiscal discipline, peace consolidation, national cohesion, rule of law, freedom of expression, and governance and accountability, Sierra Leone is getting worse and worse off by the tick of the clock.

But since the coming into power of APC, no diplomatic mission or donor agency appears to be saying anything to the domestic and international public by way of publishing periodic country political updates as they used to regularly and transparently do during the SLPP era. DFID and UK government are not longer talking of an IGAP: Improved Accountability and Governance Pact with government, in spite of increased levels of corruption-with-impunity and fiscal indiscipline in the country. The UN mission is no longer compiling and dissemination security updates or alerts to its staff in the regular manner it used to do, in spite of increased levels of APC perpetrated violence and scams against potential investors across the country. The IMF and World Bank prefer silence to mentioning publicly about Sierra Leone’s recent economic downturns under APC due mainly to anomalous public spending, misprocurement and fiscal indiscipline. The US Embassy has nothing to say publicly about democracy issues beyond the recent duping of its citizens by APC con-men. The European Union seems to be keeping its frustration under carpet about the APC’s seeming lack of interest in accelerating the Kenema-Koindu road construction project just because the project is located in an SLPP heartland.

The head offices and governments concerned need to ensure that their emissaries in Sierra Leone transform, as a matter of urgency and necessity, their current state of complacencies into proactive action by engaging the APC government headlong on the same issues of governance and accountability which once constituted the basis of their country dialogues with the previous government; and by telling the public regularly of the outcome of their dialogues. Otherwise the emissaries in Freetown would be widely perceived as not working in the interest of the governments and organizations they represent. And this would have far reaching implications for not only their economic and political investment in Sierra Leone, but also in achieving concrete development results on the ground.