March 25, 2021
By Ilyasa Baa
The current administration of President Julius Maada Bio has been showered with praises for what is referred to as inclusive governance, coming from one time politician and Minister of Information, Dr. Julius Spencer.
Speaking to Sierra Leoneans on the 30th anniversary of the start of the eleven years rebel war, Dr. Spencer pointed out that lack of inclusiveness in governance was one of the factors that led to the bloody war, noting that the current administration has done exceptionally well in so far as giving the country a national face is concerned.
He underscored the point that much needs to be done in respect of the implementation of the recommendations of the Justice Cowan constitutional review which the previous government of Ernest Bai Koroma had swept under the carpet even before the conduct of the 2018 election. He said the Peace Commission is supposed to help address issues highlighted in the Lome Pace Accord of 1999.
Minister of Information and Communications, Mohamed Rahman Swarray has made an indefinitive comment that Cabinet will discuss the CRC recommendations to see which one can be implemented for the good of the country. Boastfully, Swarray mentioned the repeal of the Criminal Libel Law, the Free Quality Education and the recent MUNAFA Micro Credit scheme as indications of hard work by this administration and that government cares for its people.
He said the government is making frantic efforts in ensuring that the recommendations of both the Lome Peace Accord and Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) are fully implemented.
“All of the problems are not yet solved”, said the Minister, adding that the feminization of poverty would be addressed by the whooping sum of twenty-two million Dollars dished out by the Ministry of Finance to address the issue of women and youths unemployment in the country.
However, wife of the late Ahmed Tejan Kabba, Isatu Jabbie-Kabbah, fondly known as I.J. has said this government has all it takes to make March 23rd (the day the first gun shot was fired in Bomaru) a national holiday in remembrance of the atrocities committed during the war. She expressed the need for the remembrance of the heroes and heroines whose lives were lost to the war.
It could be recalled that before Pa Kabbah declared the end of the war, nineteen years ago, some three thousand weapons were burned in Lungi. The country witnessed the largest ECOMOG contingent with seventeen thousand peace-keepers involved in the war.