By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
Still Talking, Still Warning—But You’re Still Not Listening.
Mr. President,
We are here again. Not out of routine. Not because it is easy to speak truth to power in a nation where power retaliates. But because we must. Because silence is complicity, and complicity is betrayal. And betrayal, Mr. President, is what many believe you have done, not just to the Constitution, but to the soul of Sierra Leone.
Let us not pretend. The air is thick. The whispers have become louder, no longer restricted to civil society circles or opposition parties, but even among your own ranks. Even your loyalists, some of whom still wear the green of SLPP proudly, are now raising eyebrows, shaking heads, and clenching jaws. They know something is wrong. And what’s worse, they know you know it too.
You are still pretending, sir. Pretending that you are uninterested in a third term. Pretending that all these signs—the forced silence in the party, the intimidating warnings to possible successors, and the fumbling excuses of your Minister of Civic Education—are coincidences. You claim to be a democrat, yet you treat democracy like a pawn in your political chessboard.
The people are not fools, Mr. President. They see the strategic vacuum you have created in the SLPP. How no one can campaign. No one can declare. No one dares to be seen as your replacement, not because they are unqualified, but because they fear retaliation. You have turned secession into sedition. Ambition into rebellion.
But let’s talk frankly, Mr. President.
Why the fear?
Why the obsession with suppressing every potential presidential hopeful in your party? Why is the mention of a post-Bio SLPP treated like heresy?
I’ll tell you why. Because this has never been about Sierra Leone. It has never been about the people. It has always been about you, about your survival, your legacy, and your fear of life outside power. You fear what comes after. You fear what truths will surface. You fear losing the protective bubble of the State House.
So here we are watching as you tiptoe toward something dangerous, the invocation of Section 49(2) of the 1991 Constitution. That small clause that gives a president special powers during wartime. That tiny loophole you are hoping to exploit. You plan to proclaim a state of war, and in doing so, suspend elections, extend your stay, and bypass Parliament, the last remaining wall between autocracy and accountability.
Mr. President, are you really about to plunge this nation into chaos just to buy yourself two more years? Two years of what? Looting more resources? Awarding more fake contracts? Watching more of your inner circle get richer while children study under trees and pregnant women die in hospitals without gloves or electricity?
Your alliance, or should I say, your unholy political friendship with Mamady Doumbouya of Guinea, is raising eyebrows. Two men, both under pressure. Both face constitutional limits. Eager to hold on. And now we hear of border incidents. Tensions. Security alerts. Suddenly, the drums of “regional instability” begin to beat. A perfect excuse for both of you to cry “war!” and declare, “Now is not the time for elections.”
Mr. President, if you and Doumbouya are planning a staged conflict or, at the very least, to exploit minor tensions to trigger constitutional suspension, then let this be the clearest warning: the people of West Africa have woken up. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger—their stories are cautionary tales, not role models. You do not need to lead Sierra Leone into the same ditch just to avoid stepping down.
Let us suppose, for a moment, you succeed in this plan. You declare a war. Elections are suspended. Parliament is pushed aside. Civil liberties are locked up. What then? You think the people will just move on? That the world will reward your authoritarian ambition with medals and red carpets?
No, Mr. President. You will stand alone, isolated, and disgraced, your name remembered not as a reformer but as a manipulator. A man who feared elections so much he turned peace into panic.
Look at the Constitution again, not just with the eyes of a schemer, but as a citizen. Yes, it contains flaws. Yes, Section 49(2) offers a tempting escape hatch. But even loopholes have consequences. You may fool the Parliament. You may gag the press. You may scare the party. But you will not silence a nation.
Because Sierra Leone is changing. Slowly, painfully, but surely. And the young people, the ones you claim to care for, are watching. Their dreams are not built around war declarations and constitutional tricks. They are not interested in your fear of losing power. They want jobs, not chaos. Peace, not paranoia. Leadership, not dictatorship.
Mr. President, I say this not out of malice, but duty: You are on the verge of becoming the very thing you claimed to replace.
You came to power speaking of a new direction. But now, even your closest advisers don’t know which direction you’re going. Some say forward. Others say backward. The truth is you are going in circles, dragging the country with you in your desperate orbit around power.
Let go, Mr. President.
Let democracy breathe.
Let your party rise.
Let the people choose.
You still have time to exit with dignity. You still have a chance to show that you’re not just another power-hungry African strongman. But every day you delay, every press conference you gag, and every border tension you inflate, you close that window a little more.
So I ask again:
Mr. President, can we talk? And if your answer is still silence, then this will not be our last conversation. The people will keep talking. History will keep writing. And you, whether you like it or not, will one day be judged.
But by then, Mr. President, it may be too late.
Hijacked Democracy:
