By Mohamed Kallon
Now that the much trumpeted June 24th general elections have come and gone, though with some noticeable hiccups that necessitated the organization of the just concluded national dialogue between the aggrieved main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) and the governing Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) mediated by some international bodies including the regional bloc Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Africa Union and the Commonwealth aimed at finding lasting solution on the simmering political problem in the country, it’s high time we now shifted away our attention from politics to other development programmes.
For whatever reason, we need to be thankful to God and the organisers of that meeting, given that their efforts didn’t go in vain as the two sides despite their initial tough stands but, at the end of the three day intensive meeting, they finally agreed on a common ground.
That agreement, in essence, means that the parties love and cherish their countrymen; otherwise they would have stuck to their demands that eventually would have led the nation to foreseeable consequences.
And for a tiny and impoverished nation like Sierra Leone, she doesn’t need to face another problem at this material time after it had gone through trials and tribulations for over two decades including the eleven year civil armed conflict that caused the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, with others maimed whiles many were displaced and while properties and other development facets were also annihilated.
As if those difficulties were not enough, the country, of late, again, has recorded other memorable disasters including the outbreak of deadly Ebola disease; the Motormeh mudslide at Regent village, west of the peninsula in Freetown and the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020.
The impact of these disasters on both human and socio-economic development of the country cannot be overemphasized considering the fact that these fateful occurrences just compounded the prevailing harsh economic realities in the country, making life very difficult especially for the ordinary people.
Given all these circumstances, and importantly for the future of generations yet to come, it’s high time we started to think like true Sierra Leoneans; to put the past behind us and forge ahead as a united people.