By: Augustine Sorie‑Sengbe Marrah Esq.
Pro‑Democracy Activist and President, Lawyers’ Society
Today marks eight years since Julius Maada Bio was first declared the duly elected President of Sierra Leone following the second round of voting. Years before that, a few compatriots from university and I invested our time, energy, and limited resources in building a social movement aimed at ending APC misrule in 2018. That movement resonated with many Sierra Leoneans who, by then, seemed exhausted by the APC’s multidimensional failures.
I grew up during Sierra Leone’s brutal civil conflict, a period that effectively hijacked my childhood for more than a decade. Historical accounts often attribute the war, in part, to the APC’s combustible governance choices. As a young man, I harboured the view that the APC was anti‑country and anti‑democracy. That belief bred a lasting distrust of traditional politics, even as it pushed me somewhat paradoxically toward civic and political activism from an early age.
In April 2018, in my thirties, I voted for the first time and posted a photo online. Yesterday, a close friend shared that same picture in a WhatsApp class group and teased me that given today’s hardship indicators, was I still proud to have voted for President Bio in 2018?
As someone on the frontlines of democratic advocacy, I do not regret working for regime change in 2018. If the circumstances were the same or worse today I would make the same decision again. This is in fact the focus of this piece.
In 2018, Sierra Leone’s economic condition was already grim. The SLPP, then in opposition, skillfully capitalised on the APC’s poor economic stewardship, hardship and deepening poverty driven by spiraling prices for basic commodities. Under the APC tenure, rice, our staple, rose from Le 12,000 to Le 60,000 per 50kg bag (about a 400% increase). Fuel per litre rose from Le 2,500 to Le 8,000 (about a 300% increase). These two commodities especially fuel triggered a domino effect across transportation, food, and overall living conditions.
The SLPP promised to make life easier, branding its plan as “bread and butter.” Yet the economic realities under SLPP rule have not reflected meaningful improvement in people’s lives. Inflation galloped in double digits for years and only recently fell to single digits, but that statistical change has not translated into relief at the market level. Under the SLPP, a bag of rice has surged from Le 60,000 to about Le 750,000—an increase well over a 1000%. Fuel per litre has climbed from around Le 8,000 to Le 35,000—roughly a 500% rise.
Like all governments, the SLPP will offer explanations—global shocks, fiscal constraints, policy tradeoffs—that may sound plausible. But the bottom line remains: ordinary people bear the consequences, and the promises have not been kept.
Electricity is another painful example. Toward the end of APC rule, power supply had deteriorated into crisis, prompting the Karpowership arrangement as a temporary fix. The SLPP not only condemned that deal but also promised a lasting, comprehensive solution to the electricity problem. Eight years later, household supply appears worse in many areas, even if official data suggests expanded access nationwide.
Whether expansion has outpaced supply capacity is unclear. What is clear is the experience of citizens: recurring blackouts in the capital, unstable high‑low voltages reportedly causing fires, and widespread damage to household appliances. After eight years in office, the SLPP may still cause electricity to be a major campaign issue in 2028—potentially bequeathing the same unresolved electricity problem to the next administration. For many voters, that will be a broken promise that may be difficult to forgive at the polls.
Beyond the rising cost of living and unreliable electricity, the administration’s governing style has increasingly contradicted the reformist posture it presented in 2018. In many respects, SLPP governance now carries the same hallmarks of the APC era it once denounced. Credible reports and democracy observers both local and international have pointed to troubling signs: key institutions strained by demands for loyalty, intolerance of criticism, perceptions of courts being used for political ends, and ongoing controversy surrounding the credibility of the June 2023 elections. Taken together, these factors cast a long shadow over the SLPP’s democratic credentials. In effect, the SLPP appears to have adopted and in some ways exceeded the very APC‑style governance it protested in 2018.
With roughly two years until the next polls, the same public despondency that preceded 2018 is returning, and the promises now seem both unkept and forgotten. The SLPP has passed laws and policies—some genuinely progressive in principle and practice, others more symbolic than impactful—but laws alone do not reduce the price of rice or fuel. Only real economic productivity and credible governance can do that.
The administration however seems increasingly absorbed in tit‑for‑tat politics, trading blows with the opposition rather than devoting sustained focus to delivering on its bread‑and‑butter commitments. The SLPP may be winning political battles against the APC, but it is losing the battle that matters most: making daily life measurably better for the people of Sierra Leone.
