A lecturer at one of the top Universities in the United States of America has described the President of Sierra Leone Ernest Bai Koroma and the President of USA, Barack Hussein Obama as having very striking similarities in how they were “enviably managing the democratic process in their two countries”. According to the lecturer who declined to be named but who emailed his thoughts to this newspaper, the two leaders had very enviable democratic credentials especially in terms of their tolerance for “senseless opposition from political rivals”. He compared the recent manner in which President Koroma engaged with his political rivals over the need to safeguard health of Sierra Leone citizens and the world in midst of a dangerous virus outbreak, to that of President Barack Obama currently also engaging with his political rivals over the need to safeguard America and the rest of the world from a Nuclear threat posed by Iran.

The lecturer pointed out that both Presidents have tremendous constitutional powers to ride roughshod over Parliamentary (Congressional) opposition but however, they use cajoling methods to let the other side come over to their way of thinking.

“I want to urge President Koroma not to give up on the opposition but to continue to dialogue with them to see reason to join hands with him in implementing emergency measures against Ebola. Koroma has already shown that he can use Section 29.(14) to legitimately force his way through and simply ignore their opposition but instead, let him show them the kind of enviable democrat he really is by continuing to engage them,” the University lecturer wrote.