|
I absolutely agree with you on demanding a concise report from Mr. Abdul Tejan-Cole on the current status of his job in Sierra Leone where corruption is a way of life. Telling the world about the shortcomings of other African countries' on the fight against corruption, refraining to mention anything about Sierra Leone where he is the current Chairman of the newly empowered and embolden Anti-Corruption Commission, where peoples expectations are at their zenith awaiting his findings and decisions, does not make any sense to me.
I take very passionately seriously his lamentation on his last paragraph:
"Some individuals continue to do an incredible job under extremely unfavorable circumstances. Yet many of our leaders are not acting in the best interests of their people, encouraging or becoming part of kleptocratic elite for whom corruption is a way of life. We will not succeed in this fight if the political will is lacking and if those who have deprived us of having the basic amenities and economic development go unpunished. It is time to rethink this war and combat the scourge of corruption. African Leaders must not be equivocal----no sacred cows must really mean any sacred cows."
These are very true but hard words to say. I always call it the inconvenient truth. Is the commissioner coming out of his soliloquy and indirectly trying to expose his feelings about his hiccups in his coveted institution for which he had raised our expectations to its utmost level in his promise to fight the embedded culture of corruption which has eaten the moral and economic fabric of our nation? I believe the job was given to him by the President because he was seen to have been espoused with the idea of combating the cancerous enigmatic culture of corruption that is systemically destroying the totality of our nation. For that matter, more powers were granted to him and his commission by acts of Parliament to do a clean-up for the people of Sierra Leone and the country that is yearning to become a Nation among Nations, with equal strength and voice in the affairs of nations.
But has he been fretful of what in his pursuit of his dreams? We had been promised a "zero tolerance for corruption and no sacred cows by the President, has that mood changed at all? The only person that could explain that to us is the Anti- Corruption Tsar, Mr. Abdul Tejan-Cole himself. In fact, why has it taken so long to even put public the complete list or part list of all the declared assets belonging to each government official as was required by law? We all know that the President, Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma had declared his assets on signing the enacted bill that revitalized the anti- corruption commission.
What about his Vice- President's assets, and all other Ministers and state operatives? I think the people have the right to know and deserve to know. I am tired of hearing complaints from ordinary people about the wanton and reckless or naked display of wealth by certain individuals who took over a destitute and bankrupt state to govern. I believe all the apparatus to do his work had been given him with the full mandate to investigate, prosecute and fine, free, jail et al. So who is fooling who about lack of political will to fight corruption?
We campaigned and asked the people to give us a chance to correct the recklessness of the One Party APC government of yesteryears. We campaigned and promised to fight and eradicate the subsumed culture of corruption that was destroying our country. We campaigned and promised to make Sierra Leone a nation where everybody is somebody. What has gone wrong during these two years? I think the ACC Czar should have some explanations and answers to give us. He had been given the political will by the leaders by emboldening his commission by acts of Parliament. But is he one of those armchair critics who could solve problems siting at the comfort of their abodes, but who could not perform rightly when put to the task? I do not want to think or believe so.
Unfortunately, we have seen some of them in recent months in Freetown undercutting their moral values when placed in positions of trust. Those were the ferocious of critics when they were condemning acts of ill will against other state operatives, but how have they ended? Commission Abdul Tejan-Cole, we are anxiously waiting for your take in this discourse. There were indeed people, according to the public court of justice who should have been indicted by now for their reckless and greedy misuse of government funds that were meant to develop the country. People who had left the country bankrupt and the people in abject poverty and a squalid environment. We can see most of them squirming around pitifully fooling themselves to be self-righteous in their days in government, heaping on this government with anti-climax ferocity of criticism.
They have now become the calibrated armchair critics of the government, aided by unrelenting mendacious party operatives both in Sierra Leone and in the Diaspora. If the ACC Tsar had been doing his job as he had taken the oath to do, most of these toxic behaviour would not have been exhibited in our midst with such impudence and alacrity. Any inaction by the ACC Tsar is an absolution of those criminals and economic vandals.
|
