The eccentric nature of Sierra Leone`s politics

Politics in Sierra Leone can take a breathtakingly eccentric shape.

And, contrary to what many ordinary Sierra Leoneans would want you believe, it means everything to most people here.

Also the drama, as we are currently experiencing, can be captivating, sometimes annoying, and for the most part threatening.

When you take the two main rivals, the opposition Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC), you get a storm of happenings.

The rest of the ten registered political parties do not only accompany the occasions, they also serve as perfect catalysts for the unending drama [a topic for another day].

Between the APC and SLPP, take the story of the unfortunate French journalist last month.

Up to now no one appears to know his real identity, except that he works for the France-based Africa 24. Other sources say he`s a Senegalese national. In any case, the poor journalist found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and his ordeal was politicised to the climax.

Reports by what the SLPP called ‘paid APC journalists’ alleged that he was detained and tortured. This ignited a heated exchange between the two major political rivals.

The journalist was covering a political rally on Nomination Day [each political part is allotted a separate day] of the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the SLPP when he aroused suspicion among party supporters.

Political and Public Affairs minister, Alpha Kanu, wasted no time to rally the media for a press conference during which he alleged the opposition supporters imprisoned and tortured the journalist.

“All of his properties including phones, cameras, money and recorder were confiscated and the journalist was detained and tortured for seven good hours inside the SLPP headquarters,” he alleged.

At some point there was confusion as to whether seven journalists were subjected to that situation or whether one journalist was detained for seven days.

Anyway, although officials of the SLPP admitted the occurrence of an incident involving a ‘suspicious’ foreign journalist, they insisted he was only questioned.

SLPP National Secretary General, Lawyer Suleinman Banja Tijan Sy, said the mysterious photojournalist looked ‘suspicious’ in their midst, and that the fact that he was in the company of a personal bodyguard of the government minister while filming an opposition rally particularly aroused fuelled the suspicion.

But he dismissed allegations of detention and torture as out of place and said it only showed how jittery the incumbent party was over the “massive turnout by our supporters.”

The Sierra Leone Association of journalists (SLAJ), whose leadership has been struggling to understand a certain hostility directed towards it by the ruling party, once again found itself swathed in the middle of an unenviable political battle front.

The umbrella journalist body dismissed the minister`s version of the story as concocted for political gains. That was in the form of an impulsive but necessary response to the government official who`d attacked the association for failing to condemn SLPP for maltreating one of their own.

Unsurprisingly, the next few weeks would be dominated by this subject, with SLAJ and its president, Umaru Fofana, getting severe bashing for what APC supporters see as yet another indication of their alleged support for the opposition.

Spin doctors from all sides in the political divided once again did what they know best.

For the SLAJ leadership, it was basically a matter of defending the organisation`s reputation which had come under attack.

Another major casualty was the truth about the connection between the journalist and the minister.

Apparently the ‘storm’ receded along with it in the face of the supposedly responsive journalist community.

“It is neglected mysteries like this that makes politics in this country so colourful,” chided one clearly concerned observer.