When it first came out that politicians are using their identity to gain attention, it felt like a very narrow minded gimmick because from where the numbers stand, no politician can expect to win if and only if his tribe or family members vote for him. A politician who wins an election must be able to reach outside of his immediate circle and not allow himself to be pigeon-holed into a tribal or regional shelf.

Now comes the likes of tribal politicians and their supporters who believe that the only way they can gain attention is to whip up tribal sentiments. In a very general note, it would be folly if the SLPP politicians who are afraid of losing the forthcoming elections so much that they now think that playing on the insecurities of people would lead them to win favour. What they are doing by such tactics takes more away from them than the fact that they have done nothing to secure the confidence of the people in the last four plus years.

A dancing President and a youthful first lady tells you much more about societal values than rational thoughts. The people have much better things to do than get carried away with the sentiments of idiots.

Who does not feel the pinch of poverty and hopelessness that this government has built their name on. Who in Freetown do not know about the killings of ordinary citizens by a government who used its tribesmen to kill others with reckless abandon, and on top of all that, government refuses to hand over the dead for burial by their families.

Instead of reflecting on the reasons why this government is unpopular, those who support it for another term have started with rumours that would push this country to tribal war.

The sad thing is that those who are supposed to protect the integrity of the state have neglected their duty to the extent that senior civil servants can be seen distributing sanitary pads to school children and admonishing them to vote is a the more reprehensible. They have continued to abuse their offices to selfish aims while the President and wife dance like Nero did as Rome burnt around him.

I’m Freetown, the message of tribalism has now been extended to religion. To have used a religious platform for such divisive messages as Mohamedan Gento Kamara did was something that the was rightly frowned upon. Gento underestimates the sensitivities of Freetown. He does not understand how this city works, because if he had, he would never have touched tribalism against the Creoles or religion against the Christians. Whet he does not understand is that the Creoles are a respected group if people who have never been involved in selling themselves for political prostitution. Generally speaking, Mihamed Gento should know that the Creoles have never asked to be made Mayor of Freetown over any other tribe. Vote for the Mayor in Freetown has always been won by the APC and the APC, in its own wisdom had set aside the position of Mayor to be a Creole candidacy just so that the party would pay homage to Creole participation in politics and for integrtion of them into mainstream politics but having said that, this has never been a hard and fast rile.

For one, the Creoles are not a tribal people. Their contribution to Ftwetown’s development is unsurpassed and irrevocable. They own over 60 percent of the re estate in the city and continue to be the most educated and qualified group of people per capita. So leaving them out of politics is vain, excluding them out of Ftwetown’s politics is futile and the more damaging to social integration because politics is always about allowing the people who are the governed to have a say in how government operates. Hence the preference of a Creole Mayor for Freetown is a necessity rather than an imposition. On the whole, without that minor consideration, the Creoles woiod be represented at no other strategies level of government or have a semblance of being represented at all within the democratic process. Adding that to the fact that Creoles are not tribal, who can tell is many Creoles who exist in Freetown do not ascribe to other tribes. Ar the moment, it is sad that while these bigots go after former Mayor Aki Sawyer such miscreants would be shocked when they come to know how much affinity she has to Mende and Sherbros tribes from Bonthe and the South she does have.

To take this argument about the Freetown Mayor to be someone other than Creole as a campaign message is boyish and hateful. The Creoles have built Freetown from a community of mud and thatched huts to a modern city of bricks and mortar but now that the city is over populated by citizens from the other parts of the country, some now see the Creoles as the ones to unseat?

It is so interesting for the bigots not to have understood how much integration the Creoles have secured throughout. The Creoles are singularly the group who have inter married more than any other and for most of the time, they have married into indigenous families right across Sierra Leone. To the extent that there is hardly a Creole now who does not have family members from other tribes. So to start trumpeting talk about Creoles and Christians against non Creoles and moslems show a degree of insecurity and ignorance for any politician who promotes such vile talk or for that matter, get his supporters to promote such.

Mohamed Gento Kamara enjoys popularity in Freetown because of his integration into Creole culture. He has now become a name to be recognize because the APC bankrolled his road projects even though he was a prominent SLPP supporter. He became a household name when he was admitted into Creole society and was attached to the APC in Freetown. Now that he wants political office in Freetown, his drivel should be pointed against the Creoles, and he can enter a Mosque to lambast Christians?

Is this man serious?