Sierra Leone is again entering two crucial stages in the state governance process.
Soon, the country will hold the 2026 census as a precursor to the 2028 election which the people have planned to resist owing to lack of trust in governance.
As the resistance the census and election looms, Samura Kamara is needed to address the nation on the two sensitive issues.
In his address, Samura is urged by the people to take a position regarding whether the cooperate with the census workers or vote in the 2028 election.
The people, from his position, will know which direction to go.
Close to four years after the June 24, 2023 elections, Samura has been speaking from behind the window curtains without a strong statement that triggers serious international action. Samura
Kamara is the presidential candidate for the opposition, All People’s Congress (APC) for the 2018 and 2023 presidential elections which analysts say, have been stolen from him in daylight but he is seemingly complacent with the issue in its entirety.
His message about the said elections is consistent, but less appealing to the world, a situation that lends credence to suspicion of a sell-out or trade in votes.
Samura Kamara in most of his public speeches, have always called on his APC (All People’s Congress) comrades to join him in the fight for ‘electoral justice’ without confronting the real issues and mobilising the people for positive action.
If understood correctly, the electoral justice is about bringing back the electoral victory and holding accountable those who rigged the 2023 elections.
The election rigging is a strong issue and needs a strong message to the government and international community about the “stolen votes.”
Instead, Samura Kamara chooses to go easy with soft and easy voices to a democracy-cloaked dictator worming with an “ethnic militant cabal.”
But, Samura Kamara always believes that the pen is mightier than the sword, but time is far spent without bringing back the people’s votes which he has set out to protect from the outset.
Sierra Leone, at the moment, is among few countries where a President rules without results as indicated by the findings and recommendations of the Tripartite Committee.
The Tripartite Committee is a creature of the Agreement for National Unity (ANU) signed in October, 2023 between the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party and the APC.
The Tripartite Committee, as indicated by the October, 2023 Communique, is charged with the responsibility of investigating alleged irregularities of the 2023 election and proffer recommendations to ensure that all future elections are free, fair and credible.
The Committee has completed its work, but nothing happens on the ground as President Julius Maada Bio and his government defy every recommendation in the face of somewhat weak and docile Samura who, many say, has never released the voice of a leader compared to the old man in Liberia, President Joseph Boakai.
While in opposition, Joseph Boakai and his opposition political rival teamed up and sent a strong message to the international community prompting an immediate response from the sub-regional bloc, ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States).
Reports stated that ECOWAS officials jetted in Liberia ahead of the elections owing to the call by opposition politicians.
Ex-President Opong Weah eventually stepped down after he was beaten by one of the narrowest margins.
Weah’s respect for the will of the people made him step down, but it was a different situation for Sierra Leone where the incumbent candidate, President Bio still holds the forte although the elections through which he comes to power is bitterly condemned by all local and international election observation missions.
Of these missions were two active international bodies, EU and Carter Center that condemned the elections in the strongest of terms. EU’s report indicated that the 2023 election is riddled with “mathematical inaccuracies” and “statistical inconsistencies” rendering the process a sham.
The US tink-tank election body, Carter Center, in its findings about Sierra Leone’s elections, recommended that those who play “significant role” in rigging the elections should be held accountable.
Now that the work is done, Samura Kamara is expected to blaze the trail for the implementation of the tripartite recommendations for a peaceful and progressive Sierra Leone.
But, all the time, he sounds reconciliatory and law-abiding than Bio himself, thereby raising suspicion of a “political compromise.”
Samura Kamara has been in this situation until two sensitive national issues: the census and the elections come in which the people have vowed not to participate in until the 2023 election results are announced.
The census will take place in 2026 as training for enumerators and other ad hoc workers is currently taking place.
The census should have taken place last year but pushed to 2026 apparently owing to finance, resource constraints and other challenges.
The trainees, in a short time, will visit people’s homes for the headcount for proper national planning and development although governments sometimes have gerrymandering intent as a hidden political agenda.
As the census sets to be rolled out, a good number of Sierra Leoneans have vowed not to take part in the census if the correct election results of the June, 2023 election are not announced.
Speaking to this press is a businessman in Freetown, Foday Orbai Kanu who said he would never take part in any head-counting process if the election results remain unaccounted for.
“I will not take part in the census if the election results are not announced. It is possible that the whole business of the census taking place is to prepare for 2028 election,” Kanu told Nightwatch Press in an interview.
In his resistance to the coming census, he made reference to the 2021 Mid-Term Census which was aborted by the people especially North-Westerners and development partners.
Sierra Leone’s traditional donors: EU, IMF and World Bank failed to finance the 2021 national census, resulting into its ambition.
Condemning the national census in its bitter terms is Isatu Bangura who said “the census is a rubbish, a waste of time and resources ” and therefore not worth going into.
She calls on government to fully implement the tripartite recommendations as required by the people of Sierra Leone and the international community. She believes that it is only after the implementation of the tripartite recommendations can government call for such a sensitive national issue.
Several people who have spoken on the census including those in the South-East regions have taken a firm position not to take part in the census until the election results are produced and announced.
Without taking part in the census, it is also clear that the people will ignore the forthcoming 2028 election.
They have decided not to go to the registration centres let alone polling stations to vote.
To demonstrate their resistance to the two national process, they have however called on Samura Kamara to show them the state of the tripartite recommendations and their implementation as that is what they are interested in.
Whether Samura Kamara will address the nation in respect of the census and the 2028 election is still a wait-and-see affair as he seemingly fears the status quo.