April 9, 2021
Albert Baron Ansu
One strong question that has been posed to the President is the issues of corruption revolving around his wife. It sounds as a killer question after flowing with ease and cheerfulness in rendition of the litany of success stories of the SLPP government after three years.
Too much has been bandied around the blatant lie spin-off dirty data from a so called Africanist Press to impugn. The data set used in the boring essays rehashed audit reports. So could someone claiming investigative reporting qualities not subject figures produced in audit reports to physical fact checking from a disproportionate mindset. Those who knew the author have noticed that he had long since jettisoned all modicum of journalistic fairness in reporting stories related to the ruling government. I don’t if he had since immersed in sour grape. What we know for sure is that he has been more alarmists because his approach has been the typical arm chair journalists.
So posing a redundant question to take the President off guard was not an effective way to proceed or conclude a serious issue. But in a free speech context even the dull questions make sense.
The panache with which the President answered that question about his wife’s alleged corruption was a winner. With my mind’s eye I saw it flowing from the fountain of truth. It was cool and so believably. The ease which he responded with any edginess put a ring of credibility around. He the President again: “The woman I know cannot steal a penny…”
This is not a defense as it were in a courtroom situation where by tricks and technicalities falsehoods can be turned into truth to win a case. Need I refer to one such scenario involving the late Khadija alleged to have been raped and murdered? But the verdict stated otherwise at the end of the day; astounding the whole nation. What this is telling us is that the truth is bigger than the evidence
So President Bio did not defend his wife. He has merely asserted the truth about somebody he knows with all the moral certainty. And this is also beyond spousal loyalty. It is an opinion unalloyed. He is not saying that his wife is infallible but that which relates to the funds referenced cannot prove anything that meets the elements of corruption. There could have been lapses in managerial terms of the Hands- off our Girls project which pales into insignificance the cascading effect it has having on all regions across the country. And that is worth celebrating rather than deriding the lapses that fall within the realm of a learning curve of a nascent program of grand scale.
So the opposition that has been howling and yelling about an unfounded corruption case against the First Lady that the Anti-Corruption Commission cannot find anything thereof to prosecute; should find something else to bank on in effacing the gloss from the dynamic First Lady- with verve to win hearts and minds for re-election of her husband.
With that the President has scored a point-many Sierra Leoneans are now disabused about the bunkum. And the President can stand tall as a man predisposed to truth saying; different from the cover-up guys that had been around befuddling the intelligence of the nation. Take your salute President Bio!