News Story

FREETOWN: MUSA KABIA: One of the vices the All People’s Congress (APC) is notorious for is deceit. Unfortunately, Sierra Leoneans have a thin memory and had forgotten too soon the deceptive nature of the APC as displayed during their 23 years (mis) rule prior to the April 29 th 1992 coup which forced them to take to the tall grass in shame and ignominy. The same if not worse deception has been adopted by the current APC which carries a misnomer of ‘new’ APC.

During the campaign period there were several banners strewn all over the place depicting Ernest Bai Koroma and two school pupils emblazoned with the words “WALK WITH ME TO A BRIGHTER FUTURE”. But the protean nature of the Ernest Koroma led government and their glaring show of a phthisis of ideas how to run a government has rendered those words and several other promises obsolete. Some natural occurrences can be a prognostication of what lies ahead. After hoodwinking the pupils and students into believing that he would cater for them when voted into office, Ernest has turned his back on them and the promises he made. Whether by coincidence or by design, the pupils were the first to send a message of despair and gloom to the president when they stopped his convoy along Sanders street after he ran into them coming from the annual inter secondary schools athletics competition to complain of “we wan eat”. Traditionalists were quick to interpret that as a sign of the growing unpopularity of the president among those constituents. When you begin to lose your popularity among this set of people, you should be developing butterflies in your stomach because their parents will be the next to follow and the rest of society flows with the tide.

The brighter future he promised them is fast turning into the worst nightmare for them. There is no denying the fact that the president’s actions since he came to power are at variance with all what he said. This government is not serious about brightening the future of the students/pupils. A clear demonstration is this: The previous government allocated Le 31.6 billion to grants to tertiary education, while the new government headed by the man who asked the pupils to walk with him to a brighter future slashed the budget to the same by about Le 5 billion, reducing it to Le 27.2 billion. The implication of this is very simple. You don’t need to be a certified analyst to decipher it. This government, like the past APC governments of Stevens and Momoh, has never prioritized education. Our president has a unique way of brightening the future of the students of this country. Apart from the reduction to tertiary education, allocation to the ministry of education generally was reduced to a laughable proportion.

The bete noire of this whole hypocritical arrangement in government is that an unnecessary burden has been placed on especially university students. Deep into the second semester the usual grant in aid for students a.k.a SLG, which used to cushion the financial load on them, is not forthcoming. The patience of students’ is being tested and there are reports that it is running out. More exasperating is the fact that the budgetary allocation to energy and power was increased by more than 200% from Le 3 billion to Le 77 billion, while allocation to all other ministries including agriculture (food business) was slashed.

The ‘Liberator’ is whispering this to our ears: Damn education, damn food security, damn health, up with light (for Freetown). Have you heard that?