NEC (National Electoral Commission) fits into the adage of he who fails to prepare, prepares to fail. The elections body is apparently not planning, and it is planning to fail. Sierra Leoneans know exactly how the country looks like when elections closely approach.

One may perhaps link the low-key political temperature to the Corona Virus Disease. Others say it is naïve to think of COVID-19 disrupting the elections considering the scale of fatalities and its transmission.

The most prevalent argument holds that United States where the virus wreaked the one of the greatest havocs have conducted elections. Other European countries too have held elections.

African countries also are holding elections. 2022 is coming closer, and questions about a date for the elections are most frequent. The public expects NEC (National Electoral Commission) to come up with a date in which the elections would be held.

NEC is faced with the task of conducting local council, Presidential and parliamentary elections in 2022 and 2023. Both elections require adequate preparation and planning if a positive outcome is to be ensured.

For every election, planning is done in three stages: before the election, during the election and after the elections.

In the three phases, it is the first phase of the preparation that Sierra Leone needs now. Before the election, government is expected to create the platform for the elections to take place. Procurement of election materials, hiring of ad hoc staff, registration of voters and verification, circulation of voters’s list to political parties among others are key preparation steps towards elections.

NEC must also network with law enforcement institutions to ensure that the people vote in an atmosphere of peace and security. By informing the police earlier, they would be put in a position to assess security threats and come up a threats register.

This security planning enables them to know communities prone to violence. Earlier preparation by NEC would go a long way to mitigate incidents of violence during electoral periods. Sierra Leone has seen several incidents of election violence in recent times.

Violence took place in a re-run election in Constituency 110 in Freetown. Violence also occurred in Tonko Lima Chiefdom in the northern district of Kambia, and there was a fatality case. Kabala district was also devoured in violence when two opposing political factions attacked each other with offensive weapons.

The two factions were APC and the SLPP.

Fatalities were also reported during the encounter between the two opposing forces. In almost all situations, the incidents went uninvest gated, and the perpetrators had and they still have a field day. To forestall violence and lay to rest negative speculations, signs of the elections taking place must be seen on the streets now.

Time is running out, and time and tide waits for no man. PPRC (political parties Registration Commission) is an institution charged with the responsibility of regulating activities of political parties. The body has always rejected claims that the elections might be postponed.

It continues to assure Sierra Leoneans that elections will hold at all cost. Despite the assurances, the people still hold the fear that the elections would hardly hold.

Promulgation of stringent COVID-19 rules such as: extension of curfews, restrictions of gatherings, some what compulsory COVID-19 vaccination among others are unfriendly to elections.

Except otherwise, no one thinks about conducting elections in a tightly regulated environment. People have to gather in large numbers, sing and clap together, come together in interactive fashion to listen to ideologies and manifestos of presidential and parliamentary candidates.

Enforcement of control measures hardly takes place during such situations. Perhaps, what kill the people’s hope for elections are the waves of conflicts and disagreements taking place in the two main political parties. The ruling SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) is yet to put its house in order. The party has not completed its lower level elections, and no date for a convention has been announced.

Violence, most times, erupts and eclipses the conduct of internal elections in SLPP. Most of the party members have called on the leadership to reverse election results in constituencies where lower level elections have been conducted.

It is yet unclear whether they would respond to such calls.

President Bio had wanted to lend a leaf from the book of ex-President Koroma. President Ernest Bai Koroma conducted the elections in 2018 when he was supposed to have held them in 2017.

The elections were postponed to 2018 owing to the outbreak of Ebola Virus between 2014 and 2016.

However, President Bio is less fortunate. His attempt to postpone the elections was countered by the diplomatic community in Sierra Leone.

The international community, in a press, release advised government to stick to 2022 and 2023 as the agreed elections dates. But the question is: will government go by the stipulated dates for the elections?