Succession disputes always confront ruling parties when the President rides into the sunset.
Every passing day takes President Julius Maada Bio very close to the exit door, and candidates for the party’s flag and presidency have showed up but in a rather amazing manner.
Flag-bearer hopefuls, according to reliable sources, have formed themselves into three camps (The Old Guys, the Grassroot and the PAOPA members) fighting each other even when President Bio is on the driving seat.
The Old Guys who constitute mainly traditional SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) members are eager to take their party from a man they accused of soiling the party’s image locally and internationally. It is therefore high time that the party was rescued from the PAOPA boys.
The Old Guys, at home and abroad, are no longer ready to put up with Bio, a man they referred to as the 21st century dictator of Sierra Leone.
Here in Sierra Leone, the Old Guys are yet to identify a leadership while those in the diaspora have chosen Stephen Sahr Mambu as one that would champion their cause.
Mr Mambu has been on the ground for over a year now doing the paper work before those in the US and UK arrived in Sierra Leone to challenge Bio’s presidency.
As a long-standing member of the party, Mambu and his team in the diaspora said Bio and his PAOPA henchmen had been trampling on the values and principles of a party said to be the oldest after the National Council of Sierra Leone led by Dr Bankole Bright in the 1950s.
“SLPP is a party of highly educated and civilised people that treat issues of governance maturely and not by brutal means,” Mr Mambu said in an interview with Nightwatch press adding that the only way out was to bring sanity to the party.
Mambu believes that once the party is sanitised, it will get back Sierra Leoneans’ admiration and support.
The old politician remains highly critical of the Bio regime particularly manipulation of elections in the party as well as laws and policies to support his tight hold on power.
He touched on a number of issues especially the rogue convention held in December, 2021 in Bo city where President Bio was “surreptitiously” chosen flag-bearer for the third time in a row. Bio got the flag in 2012, 2018 and 2023, but his thirst for power remains unquenched.
The convention, according to the diasporan politician, was meant to elect only officers of the party including a chairman and not flag-bearer. However, many in the SLPP were taken aback when Bio was chosen flag-bearer of the party.
“The plot to have Maada Bio flag-bearer was machinated by Dr Prince Alex Harding who was being investigated for murder case at the Criminal investigation Department. His choice for Maada Bio albeit illegality is to free himself from the hands of the police,” he told Nightwatch.
Mr Mambu also explained about how President Bio used former Attorney-General, Anthony Brewah to tamper with SLPP constitution to have his way through in the party and Sierra Leone’s politics.
After the constitutional machination, Bio is currently leader of the party and would continue to act in such capacity even after the presidency.
The prevailing situation in the SLPP will be almost the same as the one which occurred in APC after the tenure of ex-president, Ernest Bai Koroma.
The constitutional arrangement in the APC left the party vulnerable to political skirmishes as then constitution established the former President leader of the party not until a court order late last year dissolved his executive.
“It will be no difference this time when Bio leaves the party in years to come,” he said.
At the moment, it is not yet clear what the Old Guys guards of the local chapter are doing, but sources say action is being mobilised to ensure a “political hygiene” in the SLPP saying no to PAOPA rule.
A good number of the Old Guys who have been doing Bio’s bid were recently laid off from their ministerial posts.
Former Finance and Chief Minister, Jacob Jusu Saffa, Professor David John Francis, Alie Kabba, Dr John Tambie, John Oponjo Benjamin and others have taken the back seats after they were asked to lay kits since their actions are not in line with the PAOPA ideology. Sources said they fell out with the PAOPA boys after they advised to go in for a run off. But, they would come back one day.
The grassroot faction appears to be more potent and determined to refuse President Bio their votes than other camps in the party.
Grassroot politics is complex and dynamic in Sierra Leone’s body politic: it comprises members, supporters and sympathisers who do not take active part in the running of the party but have a heavy say in how things should be done.
They support and sponsor the party and sometimes candidates with their resources, and their influence on political parties lies on their voting power.
Any candidate who gets their support is automatically the winner as shown in the case of President Bio between 2012 and 2018.
According to the old SLPP constitution, a candidate who loses an election should become ex-officio which means he should take no active part in the party and also does not have a vote.
Going strictly by the clause, Bio was not qualified to stand again as Presidential candidate after he genuinely lost 2012 elections to former President Koroma.
But, fortune smiled at him because the grassroot were on his side as they fought hard to see him stand again in 2018 elections which he won.
Expectations from Bio’s side remained high with a robust price control system being an urgent demand.
While fighting for power in 2018, President Bio assured Sierra Leoneans that he would put down prices of goods especially food which, to many Sierra Leoneans, was high at that time.
“No Sierra Leonean should buy a bag of rice at Le200, 000 (two hundred thousand Leones),” he assured the people of Sierra Leone while responding to an Aljazeera interview.
Today, price for a 50kg bag of rice has hit a record high chasing Le1m, the first since independence.
Prices of fuel and other basic commodities also remains high and there is no question about the rapid rises in fares.
A trip from Freetown to Kailahun could cost one as much as Le500, 000 (five hundred thousand Leones), and it is the same for other distant places in the far Northern part of Sierra Leone where Bio is always less popular.
The grassroot felt disappointed and would not go in for President Bio in the next election. Even those who actively took part in the campaigns and rallies held in Freetown were left in the cold.
Most could not return to their villages after the 2018 elections as they were abandoned on the streets, and without any alternative, they took shelter in SLPP offices.
But, situation became dangerous for them when they were ordered to leave as party offices were not dwelling houses.
Armed guards were deployed to enforce the order, but were engaged in running battles by the irate youth.
At last, the SLPP boys were conquered and most SLPP offices have been fenced and barricaded to fend off.
With nowhere to go, they have been reduced to mere beggars who eke a living on the streets, and their zeal to refuse Bio intensifies at every tick of the clock.
The last faction in the drama, the PAOPA group who has always wanted Bio to remain on the seat would fight back.
For the PAOPAs, Bio should continue in the presidency for 2028 and beyond. 2030 has been the target as sources say a constitutional review is being worked out in the dark to make the presidential term seven years.
If he succeeds, who knows that the two-year term could be made limitless offering Bio an opportunity to go in for the presidency as many times as he likes reminiscing a political situation in The Gambia under President Yayah Jammeh.
It is really a tough time for the Old Guys and Grassroot to redeem and rebrand their party.