By Felix Khonte
The complexity of any situation is compounded by the very elements within its structures, and trusted individuals put in place to run the affairs of that institution. So be it with the All-People’s Congress Party – APC, since former President Koroma singlehandedly picked Dr. Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara as the flagbearer of the 2018 presidential and general elections at a convention in Makeni City in October 2017. There were twenty candidates vying for the flagbearer of the party. After a long tussle, they were advised to recess and go and hang heads so they could come up with a single candidate from amongst themselves. After close two hours of deliberations, they returned to the hall without a consensus. It was then that President Koroma, as Chairman and Leader of the Party, applied the selection clause of the party by then and nominated Dr. Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara as the flagbearer of the APC.
The walls began to crack immediately after the convention as they coined the adage ‘you sabi am?’ literally interpreted: ‘Do you know him?’ The campaigns timetable was drawn with each political party to go strictly by the dates allocated to your party throughout the country. The soft-spoken Dr. Samura Kamara was isolated by the other candidates and left to paddle it out by himself. With the backing of the grassroots and a few diehard supporters, he accepted the challenge with his conviction that nothing good comes from a silver platter. He made up his mind that in life “If You Think You Are Beaten, You Are, If You Think You Dare Not, You Don’t, If You Think You Have Lost, You Have; If You’d Like to Win but Think You Can’t, It’s Almost Certain You Won’t, For Out of The World We Find—Success Begins with A Fellows Will, It’s All in The State of Mind”.
Few loyalists were fully convinced about Samura Kamara’s background from the offices he had worked before returning home to serve his country; he had worked at the Commonwealth, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They stood firm behind him as they were confident of victory because of his track records in the various institutions he had worked. They toured the length and breadth of the country canvassing people to vote for him for a progressive nation. The campaigns went on relatively peaceful and quiet as there was not much intimidation of supporters from any of the political parties throughout the country.
The general elections were conducted on 7th March, 2018. Again the elections went on peacefully and the counting and tabulation of results went on simultaneously the sooner polling closed. There was no clear winner as no body scored the 55 per cent threshold as mandated by the constitution. Then a runoff of was declared between the two upfront candidates in the persons of Mr. Bio of the SLPP and Dr. Samura Kamara of the APC. The runoff elections were conducted on Saturday, 30th March, 2018. On the 4th of April, the Chief Electoral Commissioner and Returning Officer, Mr. Nfa Alie Conteh summoned a press conference at the British Council Hall, Tower Hill. He declared Mr. Bio as the winner of the runoff presidential elections having scored 51.81 per cent as against Dr. Samura Kamara who scored 48.19 per cent. That was how it ended up and there was this issue of regime change spearheaded by Mr. Guy Warrington, who was the British High Commissioner in Sierra Leone.
Bio’s first term in office was the most difficult times in the history of our country and the All-People’s Congress as a party. The election of the house speaker which should have gone to the APC as they were in the majority was high jacked by the forceful removal of their members from the well of parliament. It was as if there was no leader of the opposition in the house. He was quickly sworn in and took the oath of office. On May 31, 2019, the SLPP backed high court gave rulings that saw the removal of ten APC members of parliament and the subsequent replacement of same on the same day after taking their oaths of office. This was the time we should have seen the leader of the opposition to shout at the mountain tops so that our moral guarantors would intervene as it is stipulated in the ECOWAS protocols. But the language was ‘we are being bullied’, “Intrigue Indeed”!
The infighting continued with the formation of National Reformation Movement – NRM. These crops of young politicians were articulating for the expunging of the selection clause in the party as it did not match democratic credentials in modern day politics. There was a seeming resistance from some executive members of the party until the matter was taken to the high court for arbitration. Judgement was handed down and the selection clause was abrogated and laid to rest for the election criteria. The tide has not settled properly when another injunction was filed by Alfred Peter Conteh calling on the entire old executive to resign their positions as their mandates had long since expired to occupy those offices. The matter was again brought to the high court, and Justice Adrian Fisher gave ruling in favour of Alfred Peter Conteh and the entire old executive including the chairman and leader Ernest Koroma relinquished their positions and an interim executive was formed headed by Alfred Peter Conteh. This Cold War and infighting in the party continued until President Bio ended his first term in office.
Preparations for the next multitier elections were scheduled for 23rd June, 2023. President Bio in trying to consolidate his hold on to power, singlehandedly drafted Mr. Mohamed Kenewui Konneh without consultations with the other political parties. Before his appointment, he was head of the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Ministry of Finance. But he was brought there to do his master’s bidding. The first thing he did was to get rid of all those he suspected not willing to dance to his tune and encircled himself with mostly South-Easterners. He then laid the solid foundation for the rigging of the much-anticipated multi-tier elections by introducing the Proportional Representation or District Block System when it was not necessary as there were already constituencies in all the areas across the country.
He started the ball rolling on the purchasing of the voting materials under clandestine way; the registration of voters and the indiscriminate disenfranchisement of first-time voters in the North-West regions, the stronghold of the APC. The poor quality of the voter identity cards with some faceless and mixed-up information was all part of the syndicate to rig the elections in favour of the incumbent President Bio. It was at the messing up of the whole election’s preparations that the ECOWAS tried to intervene as they realised that you cannot change the rules of the game six months to elections.
The organisation then invited the government officials from the Sierra Leone Parliament, and two delegates from the opposition APC to go and meet at the ECOWAS headquarters in Abuja to go and find out about the blatant abuse of the constitution. The leader of the opposition was in the hall together with his counterpart when suddenly they just disappeared from the meeting as they were called upon to put their case across. They were nowhere to be found and just disappeared into thin air. It was just another big slap on the face of the APC as their leaders lacked trust in their dealings with the party affairs. That was how it ended there in Abuja with a sad story to tell!
“The day of the Jackal” has been introduced into the electioneering process of our country since the return to multi-party politics in 1996. We have never witnessed an election that a winner has been announced without the publication of the data to ascertain the validity of the results, except this one conducted by Mr. Mohamed Konneh. There was a standoff for close to three months. Our moral guarantors had to intervene.
This led to three days of consultations that ushered in the setting up of the Tripartite Committee or the Elections Investigations Committee. According to the communiqué signed by Chief Minister David Sengeh on behalf of the Government and Dr. Samura Kamara on behalf of the APC, all the recommendations emanating from the investigations committee shall be implementable. The investigation is on-going, and did I overhear that a retired Kenyan judge has been drafted to come and do the finishing? Let’s thank God for that as we wait and see the outcome.
But certain allegations have been made against some prominent people of the opposition of a sell out or have been corrupted by accepting for the party to continue to be in disarray. How can people be so low minded to sell their dignity and pride for little pittances of the day, at the detriment of their loyalty to the party and the state? They can’t speak in one accord on matters of state governance! To counter these allegations, those suspected of accepting these bribes should have summoned a press conference and clear their consciences, otherwise, their continued silence raises eyebrows pointing to something sinister and dubious “BENEATH THE SURFACE”.
GOD, DELIVER THIS NATION FROM BAD POLITICIANS, AMEN!