Bye Bye 2022, By Jonathan Sandy

By the time you are reading this, I will hopefully be heading for Bo, the second capital city of Sierra Leone 🇸🇱- my maternal home District!

The year 2022 is coming to an end and it has been a tremendously important one for me. 

Since January, I  joined the District executive members, including youth, students and women of our party – the National Unity and Reconciliation Party (NURP) the CUT ACROSS Movement in commemorating 20 years of peace after war in Sierra Leone, targeting different stakeholders, in particular, the victims of war, disadvantaged youth, students and women, and representatives of political parties  and local government authorities.

The general conclusions from this nation wide “One District, One Dialogue Forums across different stakeholders” suggests that though we have made progress in moving  our nation from war to peace and democratic advancement, we are yet to address sufficiently the root causes of the 11 years of civil war – bad governance, corruption, wasteful spending, exclusion, marginalization, nepotism and identity politics – tribal and regional electoral competition. And that economic hardship, income inequalities, unemployment, and poverty continue to persist, especially amongst war victims- youth, students, amputees war wounded and sexually abused women during the war.

I also agreed with my political campaign advisers, a cross section of our party senior leadership on  our 2023 campaign messaging and election winning campaign plan, which is yet to be finalized.

At the international front, I am pleased to have supported UN and AU missions in Mozambique, South Sudan, in the Sahel, across the Lake Chad Basin and the ECOWAS region. And the most important international assignment being my support to  strengthening the senior leadership of political parties in Nigeria.

And even more important events occurred in my. private life as well- ancestral home visits after almost a decade.

For many years, I have told people that I have never worked harder than in 2022- with a split life, multi- tasking as Chairman and leader of a national party, and at the same time professionally engaged with the international community in reinforcing stabilization Interventions in fragile and conflict affected states.

In 2023, I think I will have to slow down my professional engagements, to focus on NURP winning the national elections in 2023: local government, parliamentary and Presidential elections.

Thank you to all those who were part of my journey this year and I wish you only the best for 2023.

Sandy @JPJ, Chairman and leader of NURP