Sons and daughters of the main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC) who want to come back to the fold must be examined.
The APC executive bears the responsibility to know the intentions they are coming with. It is correct to accept them if they come with good intention of moving the party forward.
However, the prodigals must be rejected outright if it is discovered that their intentions are to wreck the party and prevent it from bouncing back to power in 2023.
It may prove quite difficult to know the intention an individual may have nursed for embarking on any action.
But, the circumstances in which the action is carried out are sufficient grounds for inferring their intentions.
These APC prodigals once portrayed themselves to be committed members of the party. They left when the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party took over reins of state command in 2018.
Hopes of enjoying the largesse of power were high on the eve of their departure from the main opposition to the ruling party.
Those hopes have turned into nightmares as SLPP government has exhibited signs of great weakness in the governance of a state where hand-to-mouth survival remains a trial.
Credible sources indicate that the coming of home of the APC prodigals is to weaken and not to consolidate the party’s chances of coming back to power.
They are sure to create rifts and controversies that will lead disunity among the ranks and file of the party, sources say, if their return is not subjected to tough scrutiny.
By so doing, the objective of seeing SLPP continues in power after the 2023 polls will be realised.
It is incontrovertible that every Sierra Leonean has the right to freedom of association as laid down by the country’s constitution.
This means any person can move from one party to another as they like as long as they do so within the confines of the law.
But, the right must be exercised prudently and genuinely with the hope of building integrity.
Where such qualities are absent, prodigal sons would be viewed by the public as traitors, hypocrites, charlatans and political prostitutes with the propensities to reverse gains made and wreck the party.
In checkmating the coming home of the prodigal sons and daughters, stringent measures and criteria must be in place so that the party authorities would know if their intentions are bright.
An APC party stalwart has said the party has a very great potential to come back to power against the backdrop of governance inefficiencies shown by the current administration.
The party stalwart however warns that the objective of the party of winning the elections is premised on the party’s capacity to check and reject those returnees that may weaken the pillars of the party.
As the popular rating of the party in power continues to dwindle considerably owing to maladministration, its hopes and dreams of winning the elections are figments of imaginations.
The SLPP administration has failed the state on its campaign promises enveloped in ‘The People’s Manifesto.’
Between 2017 and 2018, President Julius Maada Bio promised Sierra Leoneans of a cohesive and united nation. The Promise endeared the President to a significant number of the country’s population.
The people of Sierra Leone were highly excited by the campaign promise.
They are of the firm conviction that the only way the President can achieve the beautiful objective is by ensuring ‘politics of positive compromise’ in the governance of post-conflict Sierra Leone.
However, the leadership style of the SLPP is one that does not befit an African democracy talk less of a liberal and standard democracy.
The President also assured the people of Sierra Leone of economic diversification so that the country cannot over rely on one sector for economic growth.
The Promise of economic diversification was one that was tied to an unparalleled scale of agricultural investment to feed a teeming population.
The President saw the mining sector as one that is volatile and must not be solely relied upon for the country’s overall growth.
He made the promise as a result of the drastic fall of the Iron Ore price at the World Market between 2014-and 2015 which badly wrecked the country’s growth potentials.
Arguably, the most prominent promise is that of a never-ending war on corruption, poverty and lawlessness.
He was quite hopeful that the country would grow if corruption and lawlessness is got rid of.
The promises were not exhaustive but those few were the most trumpeted in the campaign period.
Political realities have shown government has recorded the greatest failure in those promises.
The degree of lawlessness, poverty and corruption remains high and livelihoods are threatened.
Consequently, the people of Sierra Leone feel disappointed and are ready to teach the government a lesson in the polls.
SLPP government, by all indications, has nothing tangible to point at, and their hope in the polls remain fragile.
The government seems to have little or no confidence to face a disgruntled public for votes in the not-too-distant future.
The only method at their disposal now is to send mercenaries or dissidents hiding in the cloaks of prodigals to destabilise the chances of a party that will surely back to power in 2023.
If APC should come back to the helm of state governance, the prodigals must be thoroughly examined to know their intentions of coming back.
Those returnees who fail to meet the threshold of returning set by the party should be rejected for the common good.