No political leader in the history of Sierra Leone has endured such sustained insults and character assassination as Julius Maada Bio, then as a candidate for his Sierra Leone People’s Party, the SLPP, and as President of Sierra Leone. The smear campaign and character assassination began within his own party when Bio sought to lead the party in the 2012 elections.
Once he became flag-bearer of the then-opposition SLPP, the ruling then All People’s Congress, APC, took charge of the smear campaign and character assassination against Maada Bio. Control of the slander and smear of Maada Bio’s character briefly went back to sections of his own party in the contest for the leadership of the party towards the 2018 campaign.
So, it was a given that the APC could eventually take charge of the insults and character assassination of Maada Bio once he became the nominee of the SLPP for the presidency. After the APC lost the elections in 2018 and found themselves in opposition, they firmly retained control of the insults and character assassination, a major tactic of their party. In fact, since 2018 to date, the APC has continued to make insults and character assassination of President Maada Bio a key strategy to re-take governance in the country.
For five years we see the slander and character assassination of a political leader never witnessed in Sierra Leone. The APC churned out so much trash against the President that many unsuspecting citizens, unfortunately, including some respected intellectuals, respected journalists and Civil Society actors joined the chorus of invectives against President Bio.
After five years, has Maada Bio proved his critics wrong? When Maada Bio is re-elected after the 23 June elections, it will be the confirmation that he has disproved all that has been thrown at him by some of his critics who chose malice and hate to attack him. They, in their smear work, had told us that Maada Bio was a corrupt man. With zero-high profile corruption scandals around his government and zero-corruption incidence of even suspicion around his personal habits (buying properties all over the place) Sierra Leoneans are now assured that Maada Bio’s quest for leadership of the country has never been about accumulating personal wealth.
Anybody who knows Maada would know that he has never been of grandeur and lavishness. The President’s habits in this regard may have origins in his background and upbringing as a Prince, and his military orientation – discipline, contentment, loyalty and service to the nation.
While Maada Bio had been aggressively portrayed as a vengeful man and who never forgives, on the contrary over the past five years, we have come to see that President Bio embraces his fiercest critics and accusers. Many are bound to respond to Maada’s embrace of his critics as something done out of political convenience. That is not the case. He sees unity in diversity, including the difference in political orientations.
The fact is that Maada Bio has never been a man who accumulates enemies. As a chiefly-bred, soldier-trained politician, President Bio knows that all political battles are temporal, which you win or lose and move on.
One vicious strand of the attacks on President Bio’s character by the APC, in particular, was the accusations of human rights abuse. All over the world, leaders’ human rights records are judged by the laws they pass to restrict dissent and civic space and the number of political prisoners in the country.
After five years, Maada Bio has proven that contrary to what has been said about him, he is the biggest champion of civil liberties of all the leaders in Sierra Leone, post-Sir Milton Margai. President Bio personally led the move for the finest legislative actions on political and civil liberties in decades in Sierra Leone. For that, he has received many international acclaim. There are no political prisoners in Sierra Leone and there will never be under Maada Bio’s watch.
After five years, we say thank you President Bio for staying the course of your true character. As the English would say, “What’s bred in the bone comes to the fore”. President Julius Maada Bio is simply, well-bred.
