In the midst of the ongoing fight for electoral justice that is being waged by the flagbearer of the main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC), Dr. Samura Kamara, president Bio is being visited by the President of neighbouring Liberia, Joseph Boakai.

According to sources in the government, the Liberian president’s visit is to be followed by others, including the president of Nigeria.

While it is not uncustomary for presidents to visit their neighbours or counterparts, it is however done after either a re-election or the inauguration of a new president.

But since no president has visited Bio because of his elections victory, why all these visits and the acceptance of letters of credentials by our emissaries or envoys sent by the president to countries like Morocco, Iran, Senegal, Turkey and others?

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It must be categorically stated that the visit by the Liberian president is in no way a validation or legitimization or acknowledgement of President Bio’s disputed 24 June 2023 announced victory. Concern that Sierra Leone could slide back into instability is high on the projection of neighbouring or members of the international community who had to bear the brunt of our citizens fleeing to their countries. In the case of Liberia and Nigeria, they both played a crucial role in ending the brutal 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone with the lives of their citizens.

Far from approving Bio’s stolen 24 June 2023 elections victory, Boakai’s visit, much like the visits of the Guinean junta leader, Dumbouya and the president of Guinea Bissau (after the bloody and costly 10- August 2022 nationwide protests), by newly elected Senegalese president Faye (after the disputed presidential victory), these men came to warn the president about the tensions in the country and how it could affect the entire region. These were not social visits, they are rather potential harbingers of what is to come.

It must be noted that the former president of Liberia, George Weah, spoke against president Bio’s victory in a rather shady way when he spoke against presidential regimes and ruling party governments who stage-managed electoral processes leading to what can only be described as institutional coups.

Weah explained that people should stop blaming the military for taking over from presidents who want to view the office of the president as their birthrights and the country as their personal fiefdom. As a matter of fact, Weah posited that armies are supposed to step in to restore constitutionality and uphold the rule of law against presidents who would rig the entire elections process starting with their hiring and firing of key members of the elections management bodies, many of them captured by the executive by simply appointing them to their positions.

Therefore the visit by the President Joe Boakai is in no way business as usual.The whole world knew how the Liberian election happened that saw the incumbent defeated. We also know how the United States and United Kingdom’s elections happened. We are very familiar with how the Senegalese presidential elections happened. However, going on two years after president Bio was declared winner of the 24 June 2023 presidential elections, no one from the main opposition, no one from the ruling party and other political parties can say how the people’s votes were tallied to give president Bio the mandate to lead.

Unless people don’t want to speak the truth and so be part of the praise singing or bootlicking camp, president Bio’s claimed second term victory is hard to justify by any leader, country or organization. His continued hijacking of the people’s mandate to lead is the cause for the lack of peace and national cohesion.

This is the reason ECOMOG sped up their arrival in the country to ensure that our political instability does not escalate to the point where it would affect the region. Global and regional leaders are having a difficult time trying to stop the wave of military coups in the Sahel to spill over. It must be noted that president Bio was part of the people that ushered in the events that led to our 11 year fratricidal war with their overthrow of former President Joseph Saidu Momoh. He is being treated or handled with kid’s gloves so as to ensure the peaceful resolution of the electoral impasse without its escalation to another winter of discontent for the struggling people of Sierra Leone.

Meanwhile, government is a living, breathing entity that cannot be made to stall or stop; it must move on. In this vein, other nations are receiving our president’s envoys to guaranty that our government remains fluid and not static. Diplomacy requires that they respect and accept our envoys much as the people’s representatives instead of the president’s. Since political correctness prevents them from interfering or openly stating how they feel about how the 24 June 2023 elections panned out, they allow our ambassadors and consuls to do their work of promoting the interests of the government and people of Sierra Leone, which in no way is tacit approval that president Bio had won last year’s elections. In acknowledgment of how unsure he and the ruling party government are ament are: president Bio was not Inaugurated, and no leader that was democratically elected by their people call to congratulate him on his win.

Since 2018 president Bio’s regime has been plagued by back to back failure of his government or campaign promise programmes, which failures have exacerbated his lack of acumen to rescue the economy and so make a serious impact on the health, financial, social, educational, and political outcomes of the people, who are struggling under the weight of runaway hikes in prices of goods and services, political intolerance and violence from state security, restricted rights to free speech, association, and protest.

The people of Sierra Leone can celebrate and openly comment on the presidential elections of other countries, but are not free to comment or take action about who really won last year’s presidential vote as the electoral commission for Sierra Leone has been vehement in their refusal to release the disaggregated voting data per polling station from across the country This is a shame and travesty of the democratic process in this age of mass media.

Therefore, regional leaders are not visiting president Bio to acknowledge his elections victory. They are coming to warn the president to read the writing on the wall as his unresolved electoral victory is affecting the peace and security of the country and region. Lonta!