“The ring leader or RIM (Radical Inclusion Movement), Moinina David Sengeh, is such a coward. Sir, we all know Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden; she is not anonymous.
She criticized you openly… It’s a shame that you’re using the government Press Briefing to call on your supporters to go after Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden whom you refer to as “Anonymous”. You went on to use a parable in your local dialect ‘Mende’ to emphasize on why your people should pick fight with your critics”: Posted by Hon Laycon, apparently from a Facebook page of a Samori Toure.
“Stay na U Line: Wi Nɔ Wan Disrespect insay wi Party
“To di Chief Minister, leadership nɔ fɔ bi bɔka bɔka or try fɔ make yasef big. Leadership na fɔ show humility, work wit oda people, an gi respect to di wan dem wey don suffer fɔ mek dis government cam. Di position wey u get today nɔ just cam because u get big degree or sabi pass all man, but na di sacrifice of wi loyal party people dem wey don fight fɔ mek SLPP reach dis level. Na we—MPs, candidates, an grassroots members—de bear di stress fɔ deliver di promises we mek to di people dem. Na we de fix problem dem, na we de campaign, na we di people de run go meet wen trouble cam.
“But instead fɔ bring unity an raise we all up, u don choose fɔ sideline di same people dem wey gi everything fɔ di party. Di way u de run government pan social media jus fɔ get likes nɔ go help we. Leadership nɔ to fɔ big yasef; na fɔ raise others an gi dem chance fɔ shine.
“To di wan dem wey de support di Chief Minister: Make u no forget—respect for party members na tin we all gree pan. Threats an bad word nɔ go make we quiet. Blind loyalty nɔ de help di party; it de break di unity an disgrace di SLPP name. Dis party belong to all man, an if wi nɔ work together, di future go hard.
“Chief Minister, remember say position nɔ de last forever, but di legacy u lef go talk for u. Stay na u line, respect di people dem wey don sacrifice, an lead wit sense. U nɔ di fos Chief Minister, an u nɔ go be di last. One day, di table go turn, an u go understand di value of di people dem u de look down pan now. Until dat day reach, no forget say SLPP e power na di unity we all de fight fɔ. We go do all ting fɔ protect am” – Hon. Laycon
” The Missing Ingredient”
David Moinina Sengeh (PhD): You are a graduate of Harvard University (No 3 in world global ranking of universities, and whilst there, you were cofounder of LeBone Solutions, a startup that developed inexpensive batteries from microbial fuel cells). You also did a postgraduate degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), specializing in prosthetics. (MIT is No 26 in US university rankings). In terms of access to two of the top universities in the world, I doubt whether up to five Sierra Leoneans have ever earned your laurels since the British established a naval base in this land area we call Sierra Leone in 1787, which they initially called “Province of Freedom” for freed slaves they captured (“re-captives”) on slave ships at the ebbing years of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Please, get to your colleagues at Harvard University on the following fact: “The East Asian subfield addresses the religions of China, Korea, and Japan through their historical and doctrinal development, their interactions, and in their social, political, and cultural contexts. The subfield addresses Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, Daoism, Shintoism, new religious movements, and other religious phenomena of the region”. (SOURCE: studyofreligion.fas.
harvard.edu/academic-fields/east-asian-religions/). It is likely that studying largely technology subjects at Harvard University, you didn’t have time to read what E.S. Schumacher in his book, “SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL”, called “center subjects” (Religion, Philosophy, History, etc); subjects which are like the hub of a wheel, without which there would be no wheel. I studied those “center subjects” in sixth form in the Albert Academy in Freetown, 1973 to 1975, where I was “Head Boy” (for academic excellence); and studied those same “center subjects” at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, between 1975 and 1978, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts GENERAL degree. For pan-African ideological reasons, I have studiously decided not to go into a classroom to again to read more of the white man’s ‘book’. (The white man in Europe and America towers over other peoples on other continents in the spheres of science and technology; but what can the white man teach me in “center subjects” after six centuries of the Protracted Holocaust of the Atlantic Slave Trade; genocide against indigenous peoples in the Americas, Australia, southern Africa; European colonization of nearly all the lands of the southern hemisphere; and, now, enslaved by their own greed, gluttony, egoism, they race humanity towards the Apocalypse of Climate Change?).
Please, INCLUDE 70 years old Oswald Hanciles in your RADICAL INCLUSION MOVEMENT (RIM ) so we can have constructive discussions on relevant knowledge – not scream at each to drown out what we say. The Bio presidency has ironically trumpeted “Human Capital Development” as its key campaign promise, and now in governance, it is his principal policy, and, success; yet, 98% of the time those empowered in senior political positions by the President would never engage in public intellectual debates on national issues. Read the following quote several times, and, with humility, accept my requests to meet with you to explain its meaning.
” The mind is as difficult to control as the wind, but, it can be controlled – through practice with dispassion” – Bhagavad Gita.
Read those words several times. Pore on them.
Absence of “The Missing Ingredient” is at the root of our indigenous political parties losing power, especially the SLPP. Even with the political elite, and educated elite, among Sierra Leoneans having a strong aversion to reading – even with their braggadocio with their Bachelor’s, Master’s, and doctorate degrees – pleasel, pease be patient with me.
Sir Albert Margai
Charles Margai’s father, Sir Albert Margai, second Prime Minister of Sierra Leone, the first non-Krio lawyer in Sierra Leone, with a bull neck that gave him the appearance of the traditional African Big Chief, was charismatic, with a booming voice that enabled him to speak to and be heard by football field-size crowds without using microphones and speakers. After attending an Organization of African Unity (OAU) in the early 1960s and speaking for three hours, Sir Albert Margai (my maternal granduncle, by the way) earned the sobriquet “Albert Margai of Africa”. Within the SLPP, Albert Margai was more popular than his elder brother, Sir Milton Margai, who he had beaten in a contest for the SLPP leadership about 1960, but persuaded by SLPP elders not to eclipse his elder brother. He acquiesced to that. But, aaa yaaa, lack of emotional discipline in Sir Albert Margai got him in 1966 to begin touring the country to advocate for a One Party State. He belied the growing strength of the APC. He stoked fears and alarm in not only the APC, but among leaders within the SLPP.
As the 1967 parliamentary election approached, Sir Albert Margai influenced the SLPP giving party symbols to only those he favored, denying symbols to those who were apposed to his growing dictatorial tendencies. That was how he denied the SLPP party symbols to three popular men in constituencies in Kenema District and Moyamba District – Francis, Briwa, and Kai-Samba – who contested as Independent candidates, and beat the SLPP candidates in two of their stronghold districts. The three won in their constituencies. The three became implacable foes of Sir Albert Margai, and, were the catalyst for the APC Leader, Siaka Stevens, being sworn in as Prime Minister in 1967 by the Governor General then, representative of the Queen of the United Kingdom.
If Sir Albert Margai had emotional discipline to control his egotism, he would not have overestimated his strengths and underestimated the weaknesses of his political antagonists.
In subsequent articles in this serial, I would show how the lack of emotional discipline of APC Leader, President Siaka Stevens, nearly plunged our country into a civil war in 1977; and how his institutionalized kleptocracy ruined Sierra Leone. His successor, the hedonistic General Joseph Saidu Momoh was an emotionally bankrupt leader. The SLPP’s leader, President Tejan Kabbah: the leader who twice lost his capital city to ragtag combatants, causing thousands to be murdered and amputated? Ar dae kam. Duya una wait for me.
Dr Sylvia Blyden versus Dr David Moinina Sengeh
Dr. Sylvia Blyden trained as a medical doctor at the College of Medicine and Allied Health Services (COMAHS) of Sierra Leone, about thirty years ago. She taught herself to become an expert in Information Technology, enough to secure local and international contracts. She jumped into journalism, established the AWARENESS TIMES, and has held her own as one of the most feared and respected journalists of our time. She was made “Special Executive Assistant (SEA)” to the President, and social welfare minister, in the government of former President Ernest Bai Koroma. She had started her own political party in her 20s. She has an incisive intellect, able to see and articulate weaknesses in national arguments that most people would be oblivious of. Sylvia Blyden aspires for the presidency of Sierra Leone.
Dr Sylvia Olayinka Blyden has been needing Dr. David Moinina Sengeh for months now – to my bemusement. Maybe, it’s because her prescient mind sees David Moinina Sengeh as a likely SLPP presidential candidate in 2028, her principal challenge, so, she aims to neutralize him three years before the next presidential election in 2028. Sylvia Blyden and David Sengeh are about the same age. How has David Sengeh been reacting to Sylvia Blyden’s taunts and provocative darts? Nar ar set moht pan nar kweshun dae🙊🙊🙊
I am no friend of Sylvia Blyden, as she could have gotten me sacked in 2014 by what she published about me in her AWARENESS TIMES newspaper, when an anti-ebola saga I was enmeshed in with today’s AFRICANIST PRESS’ Dr. Chernor Alpha M Bah hit the frontpage of THE NEW YORK TIMES.
Hon Laycon
Hon. Laycon’s message to Dr David Moinina Sengeh in the introductory paragraphs of this article is also implicitly to the President, Retired Brigadier Maada Bio, AND the entire SLPP membership. It should be debated by all the SLPP leadership – in emergency mode. I would not do justice to her powerful message by squeezing my analysis of it at the tail end of this article. I will do my analysis in a subsequent article. Her message is another broadside at David Sengeh, like famous print and electronic media icon’s message, Sorie Fofanah. What I can conclude here is this: If Retired Brigadier Maada Bio was not the presidential candidate in 2018, no way would the APC have handed over power to the SLPP. If it have been some other SLPP leader as President over the past six years, the lurking Dogs of War would have kicked him from power in a military coup – like they did SLPP Leader, Tejan Kabbah, on May 25, 1997. Whatever the rumblings against Maada Bio by some SLPP partisans like the KENEMA BOYS, the SLPP partisans owe Bio a deep sense of gratitude. Now, the next phase – Bio’s successor. How would Bio handle this delicate issue? With arrogance? My Bonthe Brother, Retired Brigadier Maada Bio, President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, needs my “The Missing Ingredient” lesson which I have offered him through some of his most senior political appointees at State House.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
