THE JOINT With George S. Khoryama DICTATORSHIP? We saw it coming from a distance; and that is dictatorship in the making no sooner President Ernest Bai Koroma began his second term in office. The rumblings of that style of leadership could be heard first, through the so-called Special Executive Assistant (SEA) to the President. Upon her return from a visit to the USA with His Excellency the President, Sylvia Blyden the SEA, in her usual intemperate manners was shouting all over this place that when she was not in town, the media went out of control. Therefore, she was back “to undertake a massive and long overdue sanitizing of the media in the country.” “She barked: “It is now apparent that the Independent Media Commission (IMC) has no intention of using the powers granted them to maintain sanity in the media, and so we as government are going to be left with no option but to save the country from sliding backwards at the hands of reckless media practitioners.” She said government was going to apply Part V of the Public Order Act of 1965 and start charging errant persons to court for criminal and seditious libel. WARNING As for the President himself in his 2013 New Year’s message from the throne in Makeni, the new capital of Sierra Leone, he warned: “I am ready to part company with friends and relatives. No more business as usual. It does not mean because I did not jail any politician or journalist in my first five years in the midst of rudeness and lawlessness, the same will continue. I am warning those with ears to hear me.” While addressing the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) party delegates at the official opening of their national convention at Youyi Building earlier this year here in Freetown His Excellency the President also went into threatening rhetoric that had all the hallmarks of dictatorial tendencies. He warned: “We will be vigilant against the perpetrators of constitutional violence of 1967 and 1962. We will defeat again and again those who want to take us back to the era of violence and human rights abuse. Vigilance is the force we have to pay to move forward. Violence is the price we have to pay for our leadership.” President Koroma in that remark failed however, to make mention of the causes that produced the constitutional violence of those years that he talked about and which, for the most part resulted in a bloody rebel war under the same APC government; and which same causes are today very rampant and observable in governance. ELIMINATION In June this year a Rwandese national by the name of Juiniesta Shimirwa who until recently lived in this country but now back home revealed that “the APC, the current regime is planning a systematic elimination of their opposition members.” She disclosed that the Koroma government would first try to destroy all those media houses that are not publishing stories that are favourable to his government. She also referred to the early retirement of senior military officers as a case in point. The Rwandese warned that the information she was disclosing was not on the basis of politics but the future of the country. UNDER SIEGE The threat to clamp down on the media by government as earlier trumpeted by Sylvia Blyden must have been a policy statement from the President himself because in her characteristic unethical outbursts, she always claims that her office is an extension of the Presidency and accountable to President Koroma alone; and the President has never dissociated himself from that threatening remarks by his SEA. And true to purpose that threat has today come to pass as the media is presently under siege. At the time of this writing for instance, two journalists were already arrested, kept in detention for more than 72 hours, refused bail and charged to court on a 26-count charge of conspiracy to commit seditious libel and the rest of it. President Koroma had instructed a private law firm to take legal step against Jonathan Leigh, proprietor of The Independent Observer newspaper and his Editor Bai Bai Sesay on account of a publication in that newspaper on 17th. October, 2013. The two journalists were picked up by the police on Friday October 18, 2013 even before they could respond to the lawyer’s demand for “unqualified apology” or to publish a correction. Every effort by the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) and other interested parties to release the two journalists was rebuffed and they continue to suffer in detention. Monday evening last week, Sylvia Blyden was all over the city boasting that she was going to lock up in Pademba Road prisons some journalists. Before long, the police came to the Global Times newspaper office to invite the editor Sheik Barwoh and proprietor Sorie Fofana to the CID office. According to the police Sylvia Blyden had gone and reported to them that the two journalists insulted her in their publication. In a similar development the police stormed and searched the premises of the Premier Media and proprietor of Premier Media newspaper, “apparently looking for evidence of collaboration between Premier Media and the Independent Observer newspapers.” The police went on to invite the Editor of Salone Times newspaper to the CID. Government had also, earlier come out with a press release threatening Health Alert, a civil society organization that had given a 90-day ultimatum to the Minister of Works to either rehabilitate the shameful, disgusting and accident prone pot holes that shape almost every street in the city or face a civil action by the people. “The approach taken by the civil society organization is mischievous and a form of moral blackmail which will not be tolerated by government,” the press release threatened. FORCED TOLERANCE Come to brood over government’s clamp down on the media and other related actions of late however, it is safe to conclude that government wants to cower members of the institution and the people in general to begin to live in a state of repressed fear, restless silence, forced tolerance for the system and hidden hatred; which will in no way help the situation. Any government that begins to use force against its own people is as a matter of fact, confessing that it cannot help to change the situation that threatens its functioning; and so being weak and insecure, it resorts to methods of bulling and intimidating the people and institutions. That is the beginning of dictatorship. INSULTS Ex-President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) throughout his two terms of office grew a very thick skin in the face of virulent public disrespect for his office and personality. For him insults from the press and the public generally were considered as to whether to use force against perpetrators which may have undermined the fragile peace, or to just disregard everything. He chose the latter for the fact that he did not want his people to take up arms again and return to the bush on account of state sponsored oppression and suppression. INERTIA The fact is often hard, unpleasant and sometimes even cruel; but it must be said and that is, the country in its present state is in ferment and inertia. There is for example, no sustainable electricity, no water; roads are in a state of national shame and disgrace; education has very little or no standard; the health delivery services are a big sham. The economy is trumpeted to be buoyant, but the fact remains that it is controlled by foreigners in cohort with few people close to the proximity of power. The people are hungry and are crying under grinding poverty. Lawlessness, indiscipline, ethno-regionalism, nepotism, selective justice, official lies and propaganda have all combined to make the country a screwball sort of place for anyone to live in with hope for prospects, pride and dignity. Does government expect the people to remain quiet in the midst of these harsh realities? SYLVIA BLYDEN Our sad state of affairs is not being helped by the presence in government of the so-called Special Executive Assistance (SEA), Sylvia Blyden, to the His Excellency the President. Sylvia Blyden is nothing better than an arrogant opportunist who by cunning, boldness and lies is almost successful in giving the government a bad name. She has no respect for anybody in the country from his master the President to the Vice President, cabinet ministers, diplomats, journalists, men and women of God; she is a liar. She behaves as though some evil deep inside her controls her actions. Because of Sylvia Blyden the world may soon begin to consider this government as a collection of jokers, opportunists and misfits which is by no means the case. President Koroma therefore, should not continue to submit to the guidance of this so-called SEA. Instead, let him seek the intelligence and respectability of more decent people around him; and there a lot of them. Until he appointed the so-called SEA to State House he had heretofore been media-friendly for which the press had had high regard for him. Will the President now sacrifice that once-commended relationship because of a spinster that has had no past? People without a past are unreliable guides to the future. WRATH And we in the media are warning her to have the goodness to leave us alone and to keep her evil spirit in check. If it fails her she must vent her ill-humour upon some other quarters and not on journalists. We are ready to fight her with all the venom, wrath, might, anger and fury in our pens. She has been warned. It remains therefore, to advise His Excellency President Koroma and his government to begin to resolve those problems that are disturbing his second term of office instead of resorting to dictatorial tendencies; they cannot help. Better still, President Koroma may as well take a cue from a Requiem for the late President Milton Obote of Uganda: “On the throne of power it is easy to deceive yourself. And any delusion can become fact, but by and by you go know that position is not possession, and possession is not position.” THE JOINT With George S. Khoryama DICTATORSHIP? We saw it coming from a distance; and that is dictatorship in the making no sooner President Ernest Bai Koroma began his second term in office. The rumblings of that style of leadership could be heard first, through the so-called Special Executive Assistant (SEA) to the President. Upon her return from a visit to the USA with His Excellency the President, Sylvia Blyden the SEA, in her usual intemperate manners was shouting all over this place that when she was not in town, the media went out of control. Therefore, she was back “to undertake a massive and long overdue sanitizing of the media in the country.” “She barked: “It is now apparent that the Independent Media Commission (IMC) has no intention of using the powers granted them to maintain sanity in the media, and so we as government are going to be left with no option but to save the country from sliding backwards at the hands of reckless media practitioners.” She said government was going to apply Part V of the Public Order Act of 1965 and start charging errant persons to court for criminal and seditious libel. WARNING As for the President himself in his 2013 New Year’s message from the throne in Makeni, the new capital of Sierra Leone, he warned: “I am ready to part company with friends and relatives. No more business as usual. It does not mean because I did not jail any politician or journalist in my first five years in the midst of rudeness and lawlessness, the same will continue. I am warning those with ears to hear me.” While addressing the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) party delegates at the official opening of their national convention at Youyi Building earlier this year here in Freetown His Excellency the President also went into threatening rhetoric that had all the hallmarks of dictatorial tendencies. He warned: “We will be vigilant against the perpetrators of constitutional violence of 1967 and 1962. We will defeat again and again those who want to take us back to the era of violence and human rights abuse. Vigilance is the force we have to pay to move forward. Violence is the price we have to pay for our leadership.” President Koroma in that remark failed however, to make mention of the causes that produced the constitutional violence of those years that he talked about and which, for the most part resulted in a bloody rebel war under the same APC government; and which same causes are today very rampant and observable in governance. ELIMINATION In June this year a Rwandese national by the name of Juiniesta Shimirwa who until recently lived in this country but now back home revealed that “the APC, the current regime is planning a systematic elimination of their opposition members.” She disclosed that the Koroma government would first try to destroy all those media houses that are not publishing stories that are favourable to his government. She also referred to the early retirement of senior military officers as a case in point. The Rwandese warned that the information she was disclosing was not on the basis of politics but the future of the country. UNDER SIEGE The threat to clamp down on the media by government as earlier trumpeted by Sylvia Blyden must have been a policy statement from the President himself because in her characteristic unethical outbursts, she always claims that her office is an extension of the Presidency and accountable to President Koroma alone; and the President has never dissociated himself from that threatening remarks by his SEA. And true to purpose that threat has today come to pass as the media is presently under siege. At the time of this writing for instance, two journalists were already arrested, kept in detention for more than 72 hours, refused bail and charged to court on a 26-count charge of conspiracy to commit seditious libel and the rest of it. President Koroma had instructed a private law firm to take legal step against Jonathan Leigh, proprietor of The Independent Observer newspaper and his Editor Bai Bai Sesay on account of a publication in that newspaper on 17th. October, 2013. The two journalists were picked up by the police on Friday October 18, 2013 even before they could respond to the lawyer’s demand for “unqualified apology” or to publish a correction. Every effort by the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) and other interested parties to release the two journalists was rebuffed and they continue to suffer in detention. Monday evening last week, Sylvia Blyden was all over the city boasting that she was going to lock up in Pademba Road prisons some journalists. Before long, the police came to the Global Times newspaper office to invite the editor Sheik Barwoh and proprietor Sorie Fofana to the CID office. According to the police Sylvia Blyden had gone and reported to them that the two journalists insulted her in their publication. In a similar development the police stormed and searched the premises of the Premier Media and proprietor of Premier Media newspaper, “apparently looking for evidence of collaboration between Premier Media and the Independent Observer newspapers.” The police went on to invite the Editor of Salone Times newspaper to the CID. Government had also, earlier come out with a press release threatening Health Alert, a civil society organization that had given a 90-day ultimatum to the Minister of Works to either rehabilitate the shameful, disgusting and accident prone pot holes that shape almost every street in the city or face a civil action by the people. “The approach taken by the civil society organization is mischievous and a form of moral blackmail which will not be tolerated by government,” the press release threatened. FORCED TOLERANCE Come to brood over government’s clamp down on the media and other related actions of late however, it is safe to conclude that government wants to cower members of the institution and the people in general to begin to live in a state of repressed fear, restless silence, forced tolerance for the system and hidden hatred; which will in no way help the situation. Any government that begins to use force against its own people is as a matter of fact, confessing that it cannot help to change the situation that threatens its functioning; and so being weak and insecure, it resorts to methods of bulling and intimidating the people and institutions. That is the beginning of dictatorship. INSULTS Ex-President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) throughout his two terms of office grew a very thick skin in the face of virulent public disrespect for his office and personality. For him insults from the press and the public generally were considered as to whether to use force against perpetrators which may have undermined the fragile peace, or to just disregard everything. He chose the latter for the fact that he did not want his people to take up arms again and return to the bush on account of state sponsored oppression and suppression. INERTIA The fact is often hard, unpleasant and sometimes even cruel; but it must be said and that is, the country in its present state is in ferment and inertia. There is for example, no sustainable electricity, no water; roads are in a state of national shame and disgrace; education has very little or no standard; the health delivery services are a big sham. The economy is trumpeted to be buoyant, but the fact remains that it is controlled by foreigners in cohort with few people close to the proximity of power. The people are hungry and are crying under grinding poverty. Lawlessness, indiscipline, ethno-regionalism, nepotism, selective justice, official lies and propaganda have all combined to make the country a screwball sort of place for anyone to live in with hope for prospects, pride and dignity. Does government expect the people to remain quiet in the midst of these harsh realities? SYLVIA BLYDEN Our sad state of affairs is not being helped by the presence in government of the so-called Special Executive Assistance (SEA), Sylvia Blyden, to the His Excellency the President. Sylvia Blyden is nothing better than an arrogant opportunist who by cunning, boldness and lies is almost successful in giving the government a bad name. She has no respect for anybody in the country from his master the President to the Vice President, cabinet ministers, diplomats, journalists, men and women of God; she is a liar. She behaves as though some evil deep inside her controls her actions. Because of Sylvia Blyden the world may soon begin to consider this government as a collection of jokers, opportunists and misfits which is by no means the case. President Koroma therefore, should not continue to submit to the guidance of this so-called SEA. Instead, let him seek the intelligence and respectability of more decent people around him; and there a lot of them. Until he appointed the so-called SEA to State House he had heretofore been media-friendly for which the press had had high regard for him. Will the President now sacrifice that once-commended relationship because of a spinster that has had no past? People without a past are unreliable guides to the future. WRATH And we in the media are warning her to have the goodness to leave us alone and to keep her evil spirit in check. If it fails her she must vent her ill-humour upon some other quarters and not on journalists. We are ready to fight her with all the venom, wrath, might, anger and fury in our pens. She has been warned. It remains therefore, to advise His Excellency President Koroma and his government to begin to resolve those problems that are disturbing his second term of office instead of resorting to dictatorial tendencies; they cannot help. Better still, President Koroma may as well take a cue from a Requiem for the late President Milton Obote of Uganda: “On the throne of power it is easy to deceive yourself. And any delusion can become fact, but by and by you go know that position is not possession, and possession is not position.”
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 11:59:31 +0000
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