President Bio Has Finally Accepted Failure

By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)

For the last three years of his final lap, President Julius Maada Bio has been beating about, or around, the bush to honestly accept his shortcomings publicly in a humble manner devoid of the distinctive Paopa-ian arrogance or without his seemingly trademark caustic public utterances which are normally intended to hurt a section of the population than to heal.

Even when the failures of most of his flagship policies are as palpable as palpability could be palpable; President Bio seems to be a stick-in-the-mud who only sees progress where stagnation is painfully staring at him. His seemingly inability to accept, genuinely and in good faith, the realities around him appears to put him in the same league with Ezeulu, the Chief Priest in Achebe’s novel, “Arrow of God”, who stubbornly refuses to accept realities until those realities eclipse him.

But realities have their own ways of revealing themselves or forcing people to unwrap them—either through Freudian slips or the eating of humble pies. That’s exactly what happened in Makeni, northern Sierra Leone, last Tuesday where President Bio, at a Presidential Town Hall meeting organised by the Ministry of Information and Civic Education, made a Freudian slip when he disclosed that as Minister of Energy (in his own government) he was incapable of solving the problems in that Ministry and had to give up due to that Ministry’s hopelessness under his watchful watch!

And the insulting thing about that admission of failure is the casual and comical manner in which he reveals the failure. If most Sierra Leoneans were not as “simple-minded like the fishermen of Galilee” (to quote from Chinua Achebe’s novel, “Anthills of the Savannah”), they should be screaming blue murder by now at such a Freudian slip. But President Bio knows he will go scot-free like the other occasions when he publicly made statements that were normally intended to hurt than to heal (like his “Terrorist Speech” of 8 May 2020 or his wishing of premature deaths to supporters of the All People’s Congress in his home district of Bonthe).

That admission of his inability to manage a single government Ministry aside, there are other failures which our Commander-in-Chief (or should I write: Traveler-in-Chief?) is refusing to eat humble pie to admit. Take his administration’s clichéd “Human Capital Development” agenda for example. He has been talking about how successful this agenda is, or has been, until the recent “Human Development Index (HDI)” report highlights how monumental a failure this agenda had been, and still is. That report ranks Sierra Leone 13^thout of 16 countries in West Africa—only breasting the tape before Burkina Faso (14^th), Mali (15^th), and Niger (16^th).

It is important to note that the “Human Development Index (HDI) was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country.” It will also be helpful to know that, “HDI measures three dimensions of human development: health (life expectancy), education (schooling years), and standard of living”.

But let’s forget for the moment about health issue because even President Bio, members of both his nuclear and extended families, and most of his hangers-on appear not to have any faith in the health care system in Sierra Leone. And on the issue of standard of living; there is nothing standard about the manner in which majority of ordinary Sierra Leoneans are living. So, let’s examine President Bio’s “Free Quality Education” programme.

To all intents and purposes, one of the policies implemented by the Bio-led administration that have been disastrous is the “Free Quality Education” programme. According to a report by the Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law–Sierra Leone (CARL-SL), “Despite the significant budget allocation, quality is often missing in the education provided in most schools and among pupils. There are complaints about overcrowded classrooms and the lack of delivery of urgent needed materials for teachers to adequately do their work.” And as if to savagely twist the dagger in the fresh wound; CARL-SL notes that, “There is a deepening crisis of teacher motivation, with many educators expressing frustration over the lack of resources and infrastructure, such as classrooms and toilets.”

Since that report was published last year; as things were so they still are today with the “Free Quality Education”, which is an indication that President Bio has failed on this flagship programme. And I cannot disagree with CARL-SL’s findings simply because if crocodile comes out of the river and tells you that alligator is sick, who are you to deny it (to quote Achebe for the last time in today’s One Dropian dropping)?

Another area where President Bio and his administration have failed woefully, despite the excellent year-in-year-out seemingly doctored data from the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), is the fight against corruption. From the countless instances of “rags to riches” among the ruling elite and the selective manner in which the ACC is interpreting the issue of “unexplained wealth”; one would be tempted to conclude that President Bio and Francis Ben Kaifala, the anti-graft czar, are seriously unserious about the duel against corruption. What I think has been happening for the last eight years is that they seem to believe that they are characters in a tasteless Nollywood movie!

With President Bio’s Makeni Presidential Town Hall meeting Freudian slip about him incapable of managing the Ministry of Energy and solving the electricity problems in the country, with the “Free Quality Education” programme in shambolic shambles, with the selective manner in which the ACC seems to be fighting corruption generally in the country; one might be tempted to infer that one of the worst things to have ever happened to Sierra Leone is the Bio-led administration.

medsankoh@yahoo.com/+232-76-611-986