 |
| Alie Kabba |
In breaking news that has blitzed social media
and lit discussion forums all over cyber world, Alie Kabba, the Executive
Director and CEO of one of the largest and most successful African
organizations in the United States, the United African organization (UAO), has
joined the race to become the flag-bearer of the SLPP.
In a town hall meeting in College Park,
Maryland, USA, Kabba declared that he would run a campaign that is based on
ideas and vision, and not of insults and the impugnation of the characters of
opponents. “At this point in time, when
our beloved country is literally struggling for its life under the horrific
assaults of Ebola, grinding poverty, bad governance, and a youthful generation
scarred and traumatized by joblessness and hopelessness, why should I attack my
patriotic fellow SLPP aspirants, who are fighting to give succor to the
country? The SLPP did not bring Sierra Leone down to its knees. That inglorious
distinction belongs to APC. For me to lambast my SLPP compatriots and give a
free pass to the APC authors of our current travails will be an act of
political idiocy and cowardice,” Kabba explained with calm emphasis.
Alie Kabba is one of the most storied student
leaders in the annals of student activism in Sierra Leone, for his courage in
shaking a defiant fist at the one-party APC dictatorship in the eighties. As
president of the Fourah Bay College Students Union, he led demonstrations
against the statist rot that President Siaka Stevens was presiding over. APC’s
retaliation was swift and brutal, and Alie Kabba, along with other students,
was jailed at Pademba Prison and swiftly expelled from the university without
his degree.
With determination and fortitude however, he was
able to get undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Ghana,
University of Nigeria and University of Illinois at Chicago.
Alie has not only worked to advance the cause of
his fellow Africans in the United States, but has also consistently and
altruistically helped his people in Sierra Leone, a fact he humbly tried to
downplay when I interviewed him. When asked about his efforts in his home town
of Koindu, or his construction of a library in Kenema Secondary School, or
buying musical instruments for his beloved Bo School, Alie said that he was
just grateful to these communities and institutions for nurturing him in his
youth.
One of the positions that Alie has vowed action
on, should he become president, is to empower the districts to have the fiscal
and legislative mandate to take over functions that the central government is
currently so incompetently exercising. He plans to devolve power responsibility
from the center to the districts, in an effort to make government serve the
people better and more efficiently. He decries the ever-growing power of the
presidency, which he blames for the loss of accountability. He plans to cut the
presidency to size, reduce its powers, and empower Parliament so that the
president will become a servant, and not an emperor, of the people. “Mine will
be a government of democratic accountability, and not the unbridled
concentration of power in the presidency,” Alie asserted.
Alie bemoans the fact that Sierra Leone spends
about 15.1% of its GDP on healthcare, one of the highest in the world, with
nothing to show for it, as is being so tragically shown in the current Ebola
tragedy. Apart from his plans to pursue a robust policy of building hospitals
and health centers at the town and chiefdom levels, he plans to encourage
private health entrepreneurs-Sierra Leoneans and foreign nationals- to
participate fully in the healthcare sector through tax breaks, grants, and other
incentives.
He believes that the mining of the country’s
natural resources has only benefited a few well- connected people and left places
like Kono and the Rutile mining area an ecological wasteland. He intends to
revisit the mining contracts, and if these contracts are found to be predatory
or corrupt, or not adding value to the country’s economic development, he plans
to institute a transparent review process. “I would rather prefer the country’s
resources stayed in the ground for the next generation, than allow a few ravenous
and corrupt individuals and gangsters to suck them dry and line their pockets
at the country’s expense,” he said.
He plans to revamp the moribund education sector
and ramp up vocational and technical schools to teach auto and diesel
mechanics, consumer electronics, plumbing, HVAC, electricity, agricultural
tech, road maintenance, and other technical trades to help unemployed youths
find jobs, or through government loans, become self-employed. He hopes to scrap
the corrupt and nepotist granting of scholarships that leaves hundreds of
thousands of deserving students frustrated. “I will canvass our international
partners and use our own resources, and work with the banks to set up a system
of government-guaranteed educational loans to all students who have been
admitted to college. The current system is a mess, and we will no longer hold
our kids hostage to this dysfunctional educational system.”
He has massive plans to ramp up agriculture and
establish a farmers’ bank to support our rice, cacao and coffee farmers, and to
work with them to establish a system for them to get fair pricing for their
produce, and a support system for the farmers to get easy access to farm
machinery and fertilizer. Alie believes that these measures will revitalize
agriculture again, and he hopes that the increased produce will play a critical
role in the free lunch program for school children he plans to implement as
President.
Alie also plans to bring a measure of justice to
Sierra Leoneans who have not been given full voting and citizenship rights. “Sierra
Leoneans of Lebanese descents, who were born here and whose families have lived
in Sierra Leone for generations, should have full citizenship with full rights
and responsibilities. I believe Sierra Leoneans in the diaspora should have the
right to vote whether they choose to exercise it or not. Some politicians have
been playing games with these so-called sensitive issues for a long time. As
President, I will work to pass legislation that will grant full citizenship to
all Sierra Leoneans of Lebanese descent and a Diaspora Voting Right Act to
ensure that all Sierra Leoneans participate fully in our democracy. Let's work
together to build an inclusive and just society for all of us – everyone in…no
one out!” he asserted.
When asked to name the two most important infrastructural developments he hopes to realize if elected, Alie answered with confidence:
“Electricity and the railway are interchangeably
numbers one and two. Without a reliable source of electricity, Sierra Leone
will never develop. We have to find a source of reliable electricity or we will
never be able to build the factories to produce the goods to grow the economy
and create jobs; and we will not be able to attract foreign investment. As for
the railway, we need it urgently. Without the railway, agricultural produce
will rot in the fields and our country will never be truly connected. APC
destroyed the railway. SLPP will bring back the railway!If elected, I will
start the railway and put down those first rails, and leave a template for
future presidents to work on and complete this great task.”
This is Alie Kabba, a candidate with a clear
vision of where he plans to take the country.
Author:
Ibrahim Whyte Sesay, New York, USA
No comments:
Post a Comment