By Alfred B. Koroma (Consultant Editor)

There are different types of bells, the School bell, Church bell and sometimes communities bell, School bells are meant to call school children to school, Church bells are to call Christians’ attention for church service and community are to call elderly people to a meeting.

This time, people talk about election bells that are now ringing to call electorate to attention for the 2023 election.

When Church bells are ringing Christians feels very happy to go to church, when school bells are ringing sometimes school children feel unhappy because some of them do not want to go to school that day.

This year 2023 the people of Sierra Leone are talking about elections bells that have been ringing to the hearings of many Sierra Leoneans including aspirants and electorates alike.

It is a fact that the laws of the Land makes provision to hold elections after every(5) year to elect a President, Members of Parliament, the Mayors and Councilors to run the affairs of the State.

But before any elections, there are processes and procedures.  The first is registration of voters by the Electoral Commission set to conduct all elections as per law, to know how many citizens are eligible to vote during polling. Secondly is the exhibition of the registered voters list, collection of voters I.D card followed by the sensitization of the general public to know how to vote, when to vote and where to vote (polling centers)

Election ends when the final results are announced by the Chief Election Officer.

During all these processes and procedures mentioned above, the Main Opposition All Peoples Congress APC Party and other political parties raised series of concerns relating to the conduct of the registration and exhibition of voters that was carried out by the commission.

In all, the Commission did very little to handle some of the problems highlighted by the APC and other political parties.

It was only when pressure was mounted by the general public, the International Community and serious NGOs that the ECSL show concern to some of the issues raised by  political parties. Even as that, they did not show serious concerns to some of the issues picked up by political parties.

All political parties are now waiting for the closure of the House of Parliament and the announcement by the Commission for campaign to start.

But from the look at things, it seems the people of Sierra Leone indeed want a change of government, change is a “relative term” this time, what type of change do people want is it a change for the better or a change for the worst. In 2018, Sierra Leoneans wanted a change of government, they got it, this time from the look at things, they want another change of government and will they get the type of change they want?  It is a wait and see situation.