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Birds Eye View By: Ibrahim Jabati
“APC aspirants commit to work in the interest of the party, and call for an end to ‘Mammy Cuss’.” Curtsy of “Awoko” newspaper.
Any sane person in the right frame of mind would naturally not want his or her children to be associated with a person that is notorious for “Mammy Cuss.” The fact is that, that person is uncultured or not properly bred and so they would not like their children to be influenced by such reprobate. The reason is simple; everybody wants the best for their children as they grow up in life. They would never want them to become “Mammy Cuss bomber” in society. Rather, they would want them to become Lawyers, Academics and Doctors, any other professional trade or teachers! Teaching is a noble profession and its practitioners are modest, driven not by self-glory but selfless service an ideal for all citizens Ngugi wa Thiongo’o opined.
This brings to mind the caption on AWOKO newspaper that screams, “APC aspirants commit to work in the interest of the party, and call for an end to Mammy Cuss.” Clearly, this exposed the state of affairs in that party and how low it has sunk since they lost the general elections to the SLPP led government of President Julius Maada Bio in 2018. It’s really beyond me why such disrespect for women. Women, men and children, everybody is important; but as Ngugi puts it, “… man, woman, and child compose a home, and if one pillar is weak, the family is weak, and if the family is weak, the nation is weak. So what happens in a home is the business of the nation.” That debacle unexpected as it were for them, though not for the upright thinking people of Sierra Leone, coupled with the loss of their hedonistic life style that destroyed the country’s economy, plunged them into a morbid state of mind that graduated also into a maniacal rage!!
Now all they could think of is mayhem, death, violence and “Mammy Cuss.” Their use of social media to achieve these motives to intimidate SLPP supporters or anybody suspected to be a sympathizer became rife. August 10th 2022’s upheaval in Freetown is a case in point of their violent nature. It was a pretext for them to show that the country is ungovernable so that investors would stop coming but again they failed woefully.
Even amongst them, to conduct a simple election ends up in violence. At home, any good developmental stride undertaken by the government of president Bio that largely benefit the masses is frown at by them and even castigate such ventures. The Free Quality Education (FQE) is one of their victims let alone to talk about the ultramodern airport constructed at Lungi, to mention but a few. Regarding the FQE and airport, their sing song is that there is no quality and that the airport is just an extension. This pettiness sometimes throws me into paroxysm of laughter!! My reply to their charade is akin to what the bible says that: seek ye the kingdom of God and all other things shall be added on to you. So I say to them, seek ye the access to schools and all other things shall be added on to you!
It is said to go to bed with your roof on fire is madness. I quite agree with this saying no doubt. No sane person would do such. As we approach the 2023 general elections, Sierra Leoneans would be making a critical choice that would have a long lasting effect on their lives. Be that as it may, I would admonish that if you don’t want to go to bed with your roof on fire, then don’t put your future into the hands of APC. So far, since 2018, they have not demonstrated that they are serious about governance issue or a better alternative. All they do is “Mammy Cuss” and violence. How can we now trust them with power? Williams Shakespeare foretells that, “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune omitted, all the voyage of their lives are bound in shallows and in miseries.” We are at such a critical stage now as a nation but I am sure we will take the tide as it serves so that we can sail to the promise land with the New Direction government, a government that respect and empower women.