By Thomas Dixon
FREETOWN, Jan. 26. (232news.com) – Just last week there was a minor reshuffle announced by President Bio in the usually manner. This mini-reshuffle saw the removal of President Bio’s Campaign Manager, Alie Kabbah in the 2018 Campaign trail from government.
Alie Kabbah was one of the people who contested the Presidential Ticket of the then opposition now ruling Sierra Leone People Party (SLPP) and managed to garner 12 delegates but despite his defeat, he joined President Bio to campaign across the country as his Campaign Manager.
After the election, Alie Kabbah was made Foreign Affairs Minister and International Cooperation but in less than two years, he was removed from cabinet and was given an Ambassadorial Assignment to the United Nations.
In less than a year, Alie Kabbah was further demoted from Sierra Leone’s UN Envoy to Ambassador of Sierra Leone to Egypt, a position many believed he never honored because it was a demotion and dishonor to him and now, the recent mini-reshuffle has seen him out of government.
What got many tongues wagging is the appointment of former All People Congress (APC) strongman who served the immediate past President Ernest Bai Koroma in many portfolios and later contested for the Presidency of the Party but failed.
Alpha Khanu came to the political limelight in 2002 when he was elected Member of Parliament in his home district, Port Loko. He was one of the fiercest critics of the then Sierra Leone People Party (SLPP) government of President Kabbah.
Alpha Khan later became infamous during the Kabbah era when he was allegedly given contract to fly Muslims to perform hajj in the Holy Land of Mecca but they ended in Abuja. This situation resulted in many Sierra Leoneans describing Khan as ALHAJI ABUJA.
ALHAJI ABUJA or better put Alpha Khan relaunched himself as Spokesman of the All-People Congress in the 2007 Presidential Elections where he showcased his mastery in political communication by adequately highlighting the mishaps of the then SLPP government of President Kabbah and at the same time, promoting the ideals of Ernest Bai Koroma and the APC enshrined in the Agenda for Change manifesto.
“Alpha Khan na cunning man, E sabi tok! If na for tok yone nobody nor go beat am,” President Bio recently described Alpha Khan in the launching of the Dr.Kadie Ssesay Secondary School For Girls in Port Loko.
The word CUNNING means someone who is very shrewd in deception and another word for cunning is SLY but why would President Bio appoint someone who in his estimation is very skillful in deception?
The Press Secretary attempted to answer the question by stating that the appointment of Alpha Khan by President Bio as Cabinet-Ranked Resident Minister is a way of an inclusive government.
This many has described as joke of the century! If at all is a way of inclusive government then the President must have been very late to do so because he is now in his penultimate year of his first term in government and is it only now he is thinking of having an inclusive government?
Most Sierra Leoneans disagree with the Press Secretary including Pro-SLPP Newspaper Global Times who described the appointment of Alpha Khan as a defeat for the APC in the 2023 poll.
Though one may describe the article of the Global Times as very presumptuous but one will agree with them that the only reason President Bio appointed a man he described as cunning is more of political rather than promoting national unity.
There is no time in the history of this country that we have seen this level of polarization than the first four years of President Bio all because of petty regionalism and ethnonational politics that has been deepened by the SLPP government.
Immediately after 2018 elections, ordinary Sierra Leoneans who were working as cleaners, office assistants were fired in NATCOM, NRA, Port Authority etc. all because of what many deemed was because of their surnames and political affiliation.
Therefore, it is very much flawed for anyone to tell Sierra Leoneans that the appointment of a politician who is the twilight of his political career as resident minister will bring inclusiveness and unity in a country that is badly divided.
