By Hassan I Conteh

Farmers in Tonkolili, north of Sierra Leone, are praying for President Julius Maada Bio to continue with his second-five year term in office as his past regime brought them much profit on rice yields and other crops.

This sample of farmers does not represent the whole of Tonkolili rice growers but it represents an encouraging number of farmers in Tonkolili district.

Tonkolili, in the north, is the opposition, APC’s stronghold.

But most voters of June 24, 2023 General elections are lovers of President Maada Bio of the SLPP than of Samura Kamara of the APC.

They say since rice becomes profitable throughout his first term, President Bio needed a second term in office.

And that: “He did not place a ban on the sale of palm oil commodity to neighbouring countries,” said a woman in Tonkolili.

The woman and her husband wished the newly re-elected President a sound health and luck on his side to finish his mandate  as President of the Republic of Sierra Leone.

The retired soldier who is running his second term in office was re-elected on June 27, 2023, after defeating Samura Kamara of the APC for the second time with 2018 general elections being the first defeat.

Kamara contested the official results of June 2023 by Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone which declared Mr. Bio of the SLPP as president re-elect.

Mr. Bio defeated his stiff challenger by a wider margin of votes cast. Maada Bio pulled 56% of the votes cast with just 1% above the Constitutional threshold while Kamara only got 46% of votes cast in his favour.

These official results announced by the Electoral Commission were disputed by international and local elections Observers.

They said the final official results by the Electoral Commission did not match with the data collected by a team of elections observers called NEW.

The National Elections Watch comprises both local and international civil society. The civil society coalition has been observing elections in Sierra Leone over the past years.

NEW are held to a very high esteem by EU EOM, European Union Election Observation Mission Sierra Leone, and the Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization founded by United States former President Jimmy Carter in 1982.

However, the Electoral Commission in Sierra Leone initially refused to say a word regarding allegations of vote tampering, rigging and lack of transparency on the conduct of Sierra Leone’s June 24, 2023 Presidential, Parliamentary, Councillorship and Mayoral elections.

And ECSL is yet to respond to requests made by local and international observers to publish results publicly to allow transparency and credibility on the official results announced on June 27.

Sierra Leone government headed by President Julius Maada Bio is widely unrecognized as a credible and legitimate government owing to allegations of elections rigging on which path it has trodden on to cling on to the seat of power.

United Kingdom (UK), European Union (EU) countries, USA, France, etc. have refused to congratulate the President Mr. Bio, who was declared winner by Sierra Leone’s electoral commission.

Within the first two weeks of presidential Bio re-election, public distrust on the veracity of the results made Sierra Leoneans to become worried over possible sanctions to be imposed by the international community who wanted true democracy to be upheld by African heads of States and institutions.

But, lately, with president Bio finishing a month in office, there seems to be changes on the attitudes and behaviours of people. Many are now focusing on their businesses and farms and other activities.

A good number of the northerners are in favour of the regime of president Bio.

They pray for him to continue his mandate without being ousted or deposed through a re-election. The rationale behind their thinking is just too simple.

They get plenty cash when they sell rural crops to urban markets at higher prices. Between 2018 and 2023, though, the hardship in Sierra Leone had doubled more than ever. Unlike, in 2017, the suffering on the poor was not as serious as were in the preceding years.

By 2017, a bag of rice was sold around Le 250,000.

But just after that prices of basic foodstuffs went up dramatically. For example, a bag of rice was sold around Le 580,000 by October 2022 under President Julius maada Bio.

Price hikes had been affecting many rice consumers especially those who buy it but couldn’t grow it.

The less happy consumers wanted president Bio to go. But some rice growers don’t want him to go since they get to sell more local rice and make more money.

But in the face of inflation in Sierra Leone which is resulting to prices on commodities to skyrocket, the farmers are making abundant profits for their crop yields.

“We [my husband and I ] are wishing and praying for President Bio to continue till 2028 so that our palm oil harvests will be valued more as compared to when APC was in power,” says Mamusu.

Mamusu  is a gardener and a farmer in one of the villages in Konike Sanda chiefdom, Masingbi, Tonkolili district, north of Sierra Leone.