Africanist Press Podcast Service

In this episode, we examine the role of the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) in Sierra Leone’s electricity corruption, showing how the DFC inherited a corrupt electricity contract from British financed corporations, and how US international investment is now financing corruption and deepening underdevelopment in Sierra Leone.    This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.  

In 2011, Sierra Leone politicians enacted a new electricity legislation that created two parallel institutions, the Electricity Generation and Transmission Company (EGTC) and the Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) to replace the state-owned National Power Authority (NPA). Since 1982, NPA oversaw electricity supply in Sierra Leone, including the fixing of consumer tariffs. In 2016, international financial institutions ranked Sierra Leone 178 out of 189 countries with lowest electricity access. Development agencies stated that weak oversight of the electricity sector was responsible for the poor ranking, and they suggested that dismantling NPA and privatizing electricity supply would enhance electricity transmission and distribution capacity in the country. However, the dismantling of NPA and the privatization of electricity supply in Sierra Leone has not resolved the country's perennial electricity crisis but has further worsened access to electricity and fueled corruption.  In this episode, we reveal how local politicians, international financial institutions, and British and United States financed multinational corporations created a transnational project that exploited the dismantling of NPA and the privatization of electricity supply in Sierra Leone to corruptly enrich elites and corporations, whilst imposing fictitious foreign debts on the country. This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.

Sierra Leone's Energy Minister, Kanja Sesay announced on Friday that he is resigning from the Maada Bio regime because of the alleged failure to pay outstanding debts owed to the Turkish Karpowership contracted to sell electricity to Freetown residents. Kanja Sesay's resignation was later followed by Maada Bio's announcement that the energy ministry has now been placed under his direct supervision as president. These dramatic developments came after the Africanist Press Podcast revealed how political leaders of the All Peoples Congress (APC) and Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) use shell companies registered and operating out of British Virgin Islands, Mauritius, Zambia, Lebanon, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, and Kenya to impose fictitious debts on Sierra Leone using the promise of providing reliable electricity that is still unavailable to citizens. In this episode, we examine the reported "resignation" of Kanja Sesay, pointing out its relationship to the organized corporate corruption associated with the Western Area Power Generation Project, and how Ernest Bai Koroma and Julius Maada Bio, acting on behalf of British companies and American corporations, are responsible for over US$500 million in manufactured electricity debts arising from the Western Area Power Generation Project between 2013 and 2023. Thus, we highlight that Kanja Sesay's "resignation" is part of an organized effort of SLPP and APC politicians to cover-up one of the biggest corruption scandals in Sierra Leone's energy sector involving leading politicians and international financial institutions. This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.

The privatization program in postwar Sierra Leone was supposedly advanced by international financial institutions – the World Bank, IMF, African Development Bank – as a multi-sectoral development strategy aimed at reducing poverty and corruption, and improving economic growth and quality of governance and service delivery in the small West African country.   Since 2005, this World Bank and IMF supported privatization agenda has been called different names by successive regimes in Sierra Leone. Inaugurated by Tejan Kabbah as a "poverty reduction strategy", it was renamed “agenda for change and prosperity” by Ernest Koroma, and now rebranded as a “new direction and medium-term development plan” by Julius Maada Bio. However, its unfulfilled promise remained the same and included the supply of reliable electricity, the creation of value-added agricultural productivity, developing a national transportation network, and sustainable human development through efficient social service delivery. Twenty years later, this IMF/World Bank privatization agenda in Sierra Leone has produced, and still produces, the reverse of its pronounced objectives. Today in Sierra Leone, more than 90% of the population live in absolute poverty, with expenditures below US$1 a day, according to the IMF. With rising youth unemployment, high infant and maternal mortality rates, poor growth performance, lack of income and access to basic social services, and excessive debt overhangs, the country’s development prospects still remain grim. Consequently, instead of advancing economic growth and reducing poverty, Sierra Leone’s privatization program has heightened political corruption and led to intensified multinational exploitation. At the heart of this development nightmare is the hidden competition between British financed corporations and United States-backed companies for control of non-transparent service-related contracts and corruptly awarded critical infrastructure projects. In this episode, we discuss how the British Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) and the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) used shell companies registered and operating out of British Virgin Islands, Mauritius, Zambia, Lebanon, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Kenya, and elsewhere to impose manufactured debts on Sierra Leone between 2013 and 2023 with the promise of providing reliable electricity that is still unavailable to Sierra Leonean citizens. We highlight how Ernest Bai Koroma and Julius Maada Bio enabled these corrupt energy agreements in the last 15 years, and how various energy and finance ministers of both the All Peoples Congress (APC) and Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) served as agents for British financed companies and United States-backed corporations in the corrupt use of the privatization program to facilitate state corruption and multinational exploitation. Thus, we use the ruthless competition between the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) and United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) over the multimillion dollars non-transparent Western Area Power Generation Project loan agreements involving Blue Flare (BVI), TCQ Power Ltd, CEC Africa Investments Ltd (CECA), Milele Energy, the World Bank, African Development Bank, and other financial institutions to further illustrate how the privatization of social service delivery in Sierra Leone is corruptly enriching multinational companies and the local political elites, while increasing the sovereign debt crisis and worsening living standards for regular citizens. Hence, the current political and economic crisis in Sierra Leone, including the rigged June 2023 elections, skyrocketing taxes, and ongoing human rights violations, are directly linked to the unscrupulous competition between British companies and American financed corporations to exploit Sierra Leone’s privatization of social service delivery. This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.

In previous episodes, we mentioned  how the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) issued more than US$500 million in debts between 2019 and 2023 to the Maada Bio regime through unscrutinized and non-transparent infrastructure and service related contracts awarded to shell companies registered and operating out of Lebanon, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Kenya, and elsewhere. These non-transparent loan agreements include US$150 million to the Summa Group for the expansion of the Freetown airport, US$217 million to Milele Energy and TCQ Power for the supply of electricity to Freetown residents, and a US$100 million to Africell for mobile telecommunication services. These US-funded debts, in addition to about US$172.1 million extended credit facility from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also issued in the last five years, have worsened Sierra Leone's sovereign debt crisis. In this episode, we assess how these non-transparent foreign debts and corruptly awarded international contracts lead to higher taxes and youth unemployment, and how the national debt burden undermines economic prosperity and contributes to drug abuse and worsening standards of living for regular citizens in Sierra Leone.  We also continue to highlight the role of Ernest Bai Koroma and Julius Maada Bio in these corrupt corporate agreements, and how the All Peoples Congress (APC) and Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) serve as proxies for British financed companies and United States-backed corporations exploiting Sierra Leone.  This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.

Walter Rodney was a historian, political activist, and academic. Born in 1942 in Georgetown Guyana, Rodney’s research focused on slavery and colonial imperialism in Africa and the Caribbean. His notable works include How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, first published in 1972. Rodney was assassinated in Georgetown, his home city, in 1980 at the age of 38.  In this episode, we produced Walter Rodney’s lecture on “Crisis in the Periphery: Africa and the Caribbean.”

In this episode, we discuss how hidden competition between British financed corporations and United States-backed companies for control of non-transparent service-related contracts and corruptly awarded critical infrastructure projects in Sierra Leone have worsened the country's foreign debt crisis. We examine the risks such developments pose to democracy and real economic propserity in the small west African nation. We highlight how Ernest Bai Koroma and Julius Maada Bio enabled these corrupt corporate agreements in the last 15 years, and how the All Peoples Congress (APC) and Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) function as political proxies of British financed companies and United States-backed corporations exploiting the country. One such example includes the unscrupulous struggle between the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) and United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) over the multi-million dollars non-transparent Western Area Power Generation Project loan agreements involving Blue Flare (BVI), TCQ Power Ltd, CEC Africa Investments Ltd (CECA), Milele Energy, the Bank World Group, and other financial institutions. The same example applies to the Lungi airport loan arrangement with Summa Group, and the DFC's investment loan pumped into Africell. We point out that the current political and economic crisis in Sierra Leone, including the rigged June 2023 elections and skyrocketing taxes, are directly linked to the unscrupulous competition between British companies and American financed corporations operating in the country. Thus, the United States and Britain, as leading partners of the SLPP and APC political leaders, must ensure that their current political and economic engagements in Sierra Leone include the protection of the lives and freedoms of all Sierra Leoneans. This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press. 

Carlos Cardoso was assassinated in the Mozambican capital of Maputo in late November 2000 while investigating the theft of US$14 million from the Commercial Bank of Mozambique (BCM). Born in 1951 to a family of Portuguese exiles, Carlos Cardoso supported Mozambique’s armed struggle for independence from Portugal, but as the years went by he became increasingly critical of FRELIMO government policies that mostly benefited wealthy businessmen and leading politicians. Eventually, Cardoso questioned the sudden wealth of FRELIMO government officials, charging that the size of Mozambique's legal economy (around US$4 billion at the time in a country of 19 million people) could not account for Maputo’s banking and real estate boom. His investigative reports covered money laundering, drug trafficking, and other illegal financial activities of Maputo's political and business elites. This episode looks at the life and work of Carlos Cardoso, arguably considered by many as "Africa's most creative and fearless investigative journalist." The episode is part of the Africanist Press African History Series that aims to feature voices, institutions, and individuals engaged in the story of Africa’s past and present development.

Between July 2021 and June 2023, United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) approved over US$360 million in debts to supposedly finance critical infrastructure projects in Sierra Leone. The debts include US$150 million to the Summa Group for expansion of the Lungi international airport, and US$217 Million loan to Milele Energy and TCQ Power Limited; also to allegedly finance an electricity project in Freetown.  These critical infrastructure projects were awarded to the Summa Group, and Milele Energy and TCQ Power, without public knowledge, and without full compliance with Sierra Leone’s transparency laws and procurement regulations. Worse, majority of Sierra Leoneans are still unaware of the terms and conditions of these debt financing arrangements, including the interest rates attached to the loans. For one, the agreements granted exclusive proprietary rights over Sierra Leone’s strategic assets (the international airport, and the Kissy Terminal/Oil Refinery) to US and European financed corporations for 20-years.  Additionally, in September 2022, Sierra Leone’s Parliament unanimously revised the country’s 1960 Arbitration Law and passed a new Arbitration Act that mostly protects the proprietary rights of foreign companies and multinational corporations who secured recent mining concessions, and non-scrutinized and non-transparent debt-financing projects. In this episode, we examine the impacts of non-transparent debt-financing arrangements on Sierra Leone’s democracy and electoral politics. We ask: why the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) approved nearly US$400 million in loans to supposedly fund critical infrastructure projects in Sierra Leone after the country’s auditor general had been unconstitutionally sacked? In general, how was Summa Group awarded the airport expansion contract? What is the history of Milele Energy and TCQ Power Limited in Sierra Leone? Why has Sierra Leone continuously experienced lack of electricity despite these huge multinational debts imposed on the country in the name of energy and electricity supply? What are the individual roles of Sierra Leone’s two recent presidents, Ernest Bai Koroma and Maada Bio, in these secretive multinational debt deals? Most importantly, how did secretive multinational debts affect the democratic conduct of elections in June 2023?  Above all, is it possible to have free, fair, and transparent elections in any African country overloaded with enormous non-transparent debts? This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.     

Robert Franklin Williams was a black American civil rights leader who served as president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and early 1960s. Williams advocated armed self-defense against racism decades before the black power and black nationalist movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s made it a central message of their activism. Rob Williams lived in exile in Cuba for five years, during which he wrote Negroes with Guns in 1962; the book that formed the basis of a documentary on Williams and the Black Power movement. This episode reproduces the very documentary released in 2005 by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Independent Lens. The episode is part of the Africanist Press African History Series that aims to feature voices, institutions, and individuals engaged in the story of Africa’s past and present development. 

In October 2023, international organizations and foreign diplomats stationed in Sierra Leone organized a meeting in Freetown to negotiate a political settlement to the electoral crisis without first investigating the disputed elections and the accompanying human rights violations. Held at the Bintumani Hotel in Freetown, the meeting developed an agreement that authorized politicians of the All Peoples Congress (APC) and Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) to take over the institutions of government without the publication and verification of the disputed elections result. Resolution 3 of the "Hotel Agreement" created a "Tripartite Committee" that only included foreign diplomats, and SLPP and APC politicians, to supposedly "undertake an elections system review" even without the necessary legal authority to carry out such an exercise. In this episode, we highlight how the "Tripartite Committee" represents the joint effort of local politicians and international organizations to consolidate the SLPP and APC’s political hegemony in Sierra Leone, and also safeguard the politics of rotational governance that characterizes the country's political history since 1961.   This episode uses the composition of the "Tripartite Committee" to demonstrate how foreign diplomats and SLPP/APC politicians have excluded the majority of Sierra Leone’s political parties and civil society voices in their joint efforts to consolidate and protect the two-party hegemony at the expense of real democracy in the country. This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.

In July and August 2023, the United States government announced visa restrictions on officials who undermined democracy in Sierra Leone and called for an investigation into the conduct of the elections and accompanying human rights violations. The move followed the disputed June 2023 general elections, which international and domestic elections observer groups described as "undemocratic and non-transparent." However, in October 2023, the United States Embassy in Sierra Leone issued several statements that endorsed a "Hotel Agreement" between the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and All Peoples Congress (APC), allowing politicians of the two parties to enter into a power-sharing arrangement without first investigating the conduct of the June 2023 elections. In this episode, we review the position of the British government, showing that process that led to the October 2023 "Hotel Agreement" started with the SLPP/APC meeting held at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London.   In early May 2023, Commonwealth Secretary General Patricia Scotland first met with leaders of the SLPP and APC in London to discuss the "Sierra Leone elections and the values of the Commonwealth." And on 25 May 2023, the Commonwealth Secretariat midwife the signing of a pre-election "Peace Pledge" in Freetown that committed all candidates and political parties to respect democratic election rules. Nonetheless, Sierra Leone’s public elections laws and the Commonwealth’s pre-election "Peace Pledge" were both violated. In spite of these violations, in August 2023, the Commonwealth Secretariat offered to negotiate a political settlement to the electoral crisis without first investigating the disputed elections and its human rights violations. Consequently, this Commonwealth proposed negotiation, eventually held in October 2023 at the Bintumani Hotel in Freetown, only included leaders of the SLPP and APC. Other political parties that signed the Commonwealth’s Pre-Election Peace Pledge, and participated in the elections, were all excluded from the post-elections negotiation that led to the SLPP/APC Hotel Agreement, which foreign diplomats wrongly called "an agreement for national unity." Thus, in this episode, we use the Commonwealth’s inconsistent and questionable approach to the political crisis in Sierra Leone to further illustrate the quandary that foreign diplomats and embassies face today in that small West African country. This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.

Jamaican born Marcus Garvey was a prominent political leader, journalist, and public orator. A leading proponent in the African liberation movement, Garvey founded and led the largest mass movement of black people in the early twentieth century advocating for African liberation and unification. This episode looks at the life and legacy of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the organization he founded. Content for this episode is also adapted from a documentary produced by the Institute of the Black World (IBW21). This episode is part of the African History Series of the Africanist Press featuring voices, individuals, and institutions engaged in shaping the study of Africa's past and present developments.

Jamaican born Marcus Garvey was a prominent political leader, journalist, and public orator. A leading proponent in the African liberation movement, Garvey founded and led the largest mass movement of black people in the early twentieth century advocating for African liberation and unification. This episode looks at the life and legacy of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the organization he founded. Content for this second episode is adapted from a documentary produced by the Institute of the Black World (IBW21). The third part of this episode will be released later this week. This episode is part of the African History Series of the Africanist Press featuring voices, individuals, and institutions engaged in shaping the study of Africa's past and present developments.

In late August 2023, the United States announced a visa restriction policy against individuals who undermined the democratic process in the June 2023 Sierra Leone elections. This visa restrictions policy followed an earlier United States government statement issued on 14 July 2023 demanding "an independent, outside investigation of the elections process" and integration of "observer recommendations to improve the electoral modalities for future elections" in Sierra Leone. Thus, in the July and August 2023 statements, the United States government expressed unambiguous concerns over "irregularities in the election results announced by the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL)." State Department Spokesperson, Matthew Miller particularly noted that "independent parallel vote tabulations and analyses by accredited national and international observation missions raise questions about the integrity of the official results," and that United States was "disturbed by the reports of intimidation – including death threats – against domestic and international observers, civil society organizations, and ECSL personnel." Yet in October 2023, the United States Embassy in Sierra Leone issued several statements welcoming and endorsing the "Hotel Agreement" between the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and All Peoples Congress (APC) that has allowed politicians of the two parties to enter into a power-sharing arrangement without first addressing the illegalities and irregularities surrounding the June 2023 elections. And in January 2024, the United States announced a US$1.5 million grant to fund an "SLPP/APC Elections Review Committee" also without first investigating the conduct of the June 2023 elections, including human rights violations during the elections. Worse, this internationally backed process excludes the majority of political parties (more than 10 political parties) that contested the June 2023 elections, and it equally fails to consult the majority of civil society voices within and outside the country. In this episode, we highlight how this exclusionary approach to civic engagement in Sierra Leone does not advance democracy in the country. We also use the contradictory position(s) of the United States to illustrate the diplomatic dilemma now facing foreign embassies stationed in Sierra Leone. This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.

Jamaican born Marcus Garvey was a prominent political leader, journalist, and public orator. A leading proponent in the African liberation movement, Garvey founded and led the largest mass movement of black people in the early twentieth century advocating for African liberation and unification. This episode looks at the life and legacy of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the organization he founded. Content for this episode is adapted from a documentary produced by the Institute of the Black World (IBW21). The second and third parts of this episode will be released later this week. This episode is part of the African History Series of the Africanist Press featuring voices, individuals, and institutions engaged in shaping the study of Africa's past and present developments.

In the previous two episodes of this series, we highlighted how the Sierra Leone elections of June 2023 did not follow the stipulated legal and constitutional procedures for the conduct of presidential, parliamentary, and local council elections. We specifically pointed out that Sierra Leone's Chief Electoral Commissioner, Mohamed Konneh did not wait for districts and regions to complete their vote counting and tallying process before announcing alleged winners of the June 2023 presidential, parliamentary, and local governmentelections. Thus, we laid out the legal and political implications of the SLPP and APC's power-sharing agreement that has unprecedentedly inaugurated a President, Members of Parliament, and Local Council representatives in Sierra Leone without a properly conducted election. In this episode, we further examine the continuous violation of Sierra Leone's 1991 Constitution and the Public Elections Act 2022 through the composition of an illegal SLPP/APC Tripartite Committee, now funded by international agencies, to "undertake an elections system review" even without the necessary legal authority to carry out such an exercise. We also underlined the fact that the international community's decision to fund the SLPP/APC's Tripartite Committee does not advance democracy and national cohesion in Sierra Leone. Rather, it is a decision that excludes the majority of political parties (more than 10 political parties) that participated and contested the June 2023 elections. In particular, we highlighted that the exclusionary approach in constituting the supposed "election review committee" is enough reasons why the United States, and other foreign governments, need to rethink their current approach to the political crisis in Sierra Leone if they are serious about supporting real democracy in Sierra Leone. This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.

Jamaica poet and artist, Linton Kwesi Johnson is the second living poet, and the only black one, to have his poems published in the Penguin Modern Classics Series in 2002. Born in Chapelton, a rural parish of Clarendon in Jamaica, Linton Kwesi Johnson migrated to Britain in 1963 with his parents as part of the Windrush generation that left Jamaica on the eve of independence. Johnson attended Tulse Hill School in Lambeth, where he joined the British Black Panther Movement, helping to organize poetry workshops within the movement, while developing his work with Rasta Love, a group of poets and drummers. Johnson studied sociology at Goldsmiths College in New Cross, London, graduating in 1973. He wrote for New Musical Express, Melody Maker, and Black Music in the 1970s, while working as the first paid library resources and education officer at the Keskidee Centre, where his poem "Voices of the Living and the Dead" was staged and produced by Jamaican novelist Lindsay Barrett. Johnson's poetry involves the recitation of his own verse in Jamaican patois, mixing it with dub-reggae, usually written in collaboration with reggae producer Dennis Bovell. In this episode, we present a poetry performance by Linton Kwesi Johnson at the Leeds West Indian Centre held to commemorate 50 years since the death of David Oluwale. This episode is part of the African History Series of the Africanist Press featuring voices, individuals, and institutions engaged in shaping the study of Africa's past and present developments.

Sierra Leone’s 1991 Constitution, and the Public Elections Act 2022, forbids the inauguration of a President, Members of Parliament, and representatives of Local Government Councils without properly conducted elections. Under Sierra Leonean law, elections are only considered properly and democratically conducted when all votes in each polling station, in each polling center, and in each district, and in each region have been fully counted, properly tallied, completely verified, and collectively approved by political party agents and the authorized polling staff before they can be sent to the national verification and tallying center for final processing and verification ahead of any public announcement and declaration of winner(s) by the national returning officer.  For instance, in order to be considered properly and constitutionally elected for the Office of President, Section 51(1) of Sierra Leone’s Public Elections Act 2022 provides that “a Presiding Officer shall, after the expiration of the time fixed for polling, count the votes, polling station by polling station, certify the result of the counting, stating the number of valid votes cast in favor of each presidential candidate to the District Returning Officer, who shall in turn certify the result to the Regional Returning Officer, and the Regional Returning Officer shall in turn certify the result to the National Returning Officer.”  Section 51(2) adds that “as soon as possible after receipt of the result of the counting of votes under subsection (1), the Returning Officer shall tally and compute the results certified to him by the various Presiding Officers and shall after that declare the result of the election.” The Sierra Leone elections of June 2023 did not follow this stipulated legal and constitutional procedures for the conduct of a Presidential election. Similarly, the June 2023 elections did not comply with the legislative requirements for the election of representatives of the Local Government Councils, neither did it follow the stipulated requirements for the election of Members of Parliament. The National Returning Officer, Mohamed Konneh did not wait for districts and regions to complete their vote counting and tallying process before announcing alleged winners of the June 2023 presidential, parliamentary, and local government elections. International and local observers who monitored the June 2023 elections collectively agreed that the elections were non-transparent, and were equally fraught with numerous irregularities. The irregularities included the deliberate announcement of election results when vote counting and tallying was still in progress.  Thus, if Mohamed Konneh did not wait for districts and regional tallies to be completed, where did ECSL generate the votes and the numbers used to announce alleged winners of the June 2023 presidential, parliamentary, and local government elections? And if regional tallies and national tabulations were still incomplete when ECSL announced the elections results, which numbers and which votes did ECSL relied on to declare Maada Bio, and the various SLPP and APC parliamentary and local council candidates, winners of the June 2023 presidential, parliamentary, and local government elections?  In this episode, we provide a further analysis of the legal and political implications of the SLPP and APC’s power-sharing agreement that has unprecedentedly inaugurated a President, Members of Parliament, and Local Council representatives in Sierra Leone without a properly conducted election.  This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.

The Sierra Leone elections of June 2023 ended without a properly published election result. International and local observers who monitored the process agreed that the elections were non-transparent, and were equally fraught with numerous irregularities. Since June 2023, local and international appeals for the publication of the election results at the polling station level by the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL) have been completely ignored by the election management body. But in spite of the numerous questions surrounding the credibility of the elections, politicians from the country's two oldest political parties --- Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and All Peoples Congress (APC) --- went ahead to agree on a power-sharing arrangement in October 2023. The power-sharing arrangement allowed SLPP and APC politicians to continue occupying positions in cabinet, parliament, and the local government institutions across the country without the proper publication of a verified and certified election result. This SLPP/APC power sharing arrangement, supported by a few international organizations and foreign diplomats, is now being wrongly promoted as an "Agreement for National Unity" despite its failure to address the genuinely democratic questions around the June 2023 elections. In this episode, Chernoh Alpha Bah provides an analysis of these developments, pointing out the illegality of the SLPP/APC power-sharing arrangement, and the unconstitutional nature and implications of the October 2023 hotel agreement. This episode is part of the VOICE FROM EXILE commentary series of the Africanist Press.