Julius Maada Bio – No alternative to govern

A newspaper in Sierra Leone has published an article written by a certain SLPP fanatic who said that the human-rights-abuser-turned-opposition-Presidential-candidate, Julius Maada Bio, has promised to extend the current free health care initiative by the sitting government, to all children under 18 in the country if he is elected president in the coming November elections. It is indeed very sad to see a ‘well educated man’ like Yusuf Keketoma Sandi, embarrassing those who toiled hard to pay his school fees by expressing such ignorance in a public domain. Keketoma Sandi in his quest to present his ‘mentor’ Julius Maada Bio as a statesman, compared him to Ghana’s Atta Mills. This is indeed laughable. What Keketoma did not outline in his piece was that the fake Brigadier is a mass murderer, unlike Atta-Mills who spent most of his years working hard and making a huge contribution to his country’s development, Julius Maada Bio was on a killing spree, unlawfully murdering innocent men and women in his own country and embezzling state funds with crooked intentions to improve his bank balance, by stealing what truly belong to the Sierra Leonean people.

If President Koroma’s APC government could provide free health care for pregnant and lactating women with children under-five, it is because the programme that constitutes the initiative could only make provision for such. I am sure if the Head of State had the option, every Sierra Leonean would benefit from such an amazing initiative. Keketoma claimed that Bio had already started discussing the options with development partner, DFID, and even referred to the thief as president-in-waiting, but Keketoma failed to explain why Bio was never granted audience with British government officials on his recent  trip to London. The truth is, no one British official would want to be seen rubbing shoulders with a man who presided over despicable atrocities committed in brutal fashion during his tenure as Head of State. No matter how hard Keketoma and his comrades try to market Julius Maada Bio, the fully documented history of our country’s past paints a disturbing picture of what transpired during the period 1994 -1996 when blood was spilled in vain as some of our country’s illustrious sons and daughters were murdered in cold-blood under the orders of Julius Maada Bio. With this backdrop, Bio simply cannot be elected as the next president of Sierra Leone. Neither is he presidential material. Unless Keketoma is saying that the Sierra Leonean people are daft and would vote for a man whose record in power reveals a mafia type agenda that saw our passports being sold to corrupt Chinese businessmen, and state contracts being handed over to family members, as war was waged on the country’s finances.

Bio does not have the credentials to be President of Sierra Leone. This is simply fact. Julius Maada Bio belongs to the violent past of our country’s history. Sierra Leone no more provides a playing field for barracks boys to implement play-cook politics, and loot our state resources. Bio and his cohorts at the SLPP will never have the taste of power again and the opportunity to dismantle the progress taking place now that has discarded the dilapidated infrastructures left behind by a derelict government, and building a new nation with the welfare of the masses at the very center of policies.

It is interesting that Julius Maada Bio is picking on the successful initiatives of President Ernest Koroma’s government, and offering to improve on them. This exposes Bio’s acknowledgement that these policies are working and are changing the lives of people on the ground. Why then would he say he wants to do more? Why hasn’t Bio come up with new ideas?  It is simply because at the heart of President Koroma’s new agenda, the future development strategy and plans for our country has already been outlined and slowly being implemented across the length and breadth of the country. And talking about a new direction? That is nothing new!! Sierra Leone has taken a new direction since Ernest Bai Koroma launched his Agenda for Change nearly five years ago.  Bio must have got feedback from the people who have expressed what really matters to them – and all that points to what the current government is enabling. Bio does not have the example of leadership to present to the people of Sierra Leone. He did have the opportunity to govern, but he was busy stealing state resources instead of paying close attention to the poverty environment structure surrounding his people. Bio’s priority then were women, fast cars, and high-life. And the country has already paid the price for such recklessness. The people will surely not allow history to repeat itself!! Bio has devoid himself of the moral authority to govern – Bio is a wife beater – a domestic abuser!! The fact that when selecting a flag-bearer, the SLPP did not subject its candidates to serious criteria is in itself shocking. The fact that you can select a mass-murderer, human rights abuser and wife beater as flag-bearer, shows the vetting process had no substance – and you want the people to hand power over to you when you cannot even give them a honourable and outstanding citizen as candidate?

In his piece, Keketoma  extracted excerpts from an article written by The Economist, quoting the reporter: “British doctors who worked in the country say the Sierra Leone Government lacks the wherewithal to organise something as complex as the provision of free health care”. The writer adds “Natasha Sauven, a paediatrician, described an official document outlining drug procurement as quite frankly fantasy”. But what Keketoma omitted was even more valuable insights from comments left by readers on the same article:

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