One of Sierra Leone’s renowned lawyers, Augustine Sorie-Sengbe Marrah has rebuked senior APC (All People’s Congress) politicians for accepting brown envelopes in exchange for votes referring to them as “brown envelope politicians.”

Counsel Marrah has been quite passionate and stubborn about the publication of the disaggregated data using the law to achieve such aim.

He recently sued the election authorities to force them comply with the request to publish the data, but cold water have been poured into his effort by APC law makers who took up their seats last Tuesday.

Such act of dishonesty, Counsel Marrah argues, derails the people’s right to determine the legitimacy of a government as provided by the country’s highest law, the   Constitution of Sierra Leone, 1991.

The constitution states that “sovereignty belongs to the people of Sierra Leone from whom government, through this constitution, derives its powers, legitimacy and authority.”

By soliciting or accepting bribes and betraying ideology, the politicians have relegated the country’s highest law to the dust bin by replacing votes with unreliable settlement.

The opposition party, according to the eminent lawyer, has been demanding credible data for months, but quickly changed course by accepting pay-checks and benefits in exchange for credible electoral data.

 The move has shocked majority of the voters, stakeholders and lawyers who are discrediting the party’s leadership.

“Political leadership is our only problem,” Marrah asserted making reference to huge presence of senior APC officers, last Tuesday, in parliament during the swearing in of the party’s parliamentarians.

APC’s ex-parliamentarians who were highly critical of the Speaker of Parliament witnessed the ceremony beating the imagination of many Sierra Leoneans.

“Remote Controlled Speaker” and “rubber stamp parliament” were the main criticisms slammed on parliament by ex-APC parliamentarians, but such statements appear to have been swollen through the parliamentarians’ latest action.

The former parliamentarians also had been picking bones with controversial laws passed in the past parliament pointing out Proportional Representation, Public Elections and Political Parties Regulation laws as well as the 2021 Mid-Term Census.

In spite of the challenges, Honourable Abdul Kargbo is sure of changing the narrative as he fights to prioritise laws that protect the public interest and not political parties.

A large number of APC attendees who took over the Parliamentary Gallery were not happy since   they expected their parliamentarians to have taken the ruling bench had the election been freely and fairly conducted.

In his address to the parliamentarians, the Speaker started off by posing several questions of where did Sierra Leone go wrong? Why did APC MPs stay away so long?

The response to such questions was contemptuous of the Speaker as APC attendees said “the election was stolen” while booing at Mohamed Bangura and Alfred Thompson as “APC traitors” arousing the Speaker and the clerk’s fury.

Bangura and Thompson betrayed their party after they surreptitiously took the oath of office to serve parliament, a breach of the party’s order which barred them from such compromise owing to widespread irregularities, violence, thuggery and rigging of June elections.

However, supporters said parliament had taken back its past glory since the APC MPs had taken up their seats and strong leadership is also expected this time.

They also hope to get back their votes when the cross-party committee shall have completed the investigation of the election fraud.

 The committee is a key resolution of a communique which came out as a result of a three-day dialogue brokered by the Commonwealth, ECOWAS and African Union.

 APC members and supporters still maintain their stance that there is no winner or loser in the June-24 elections until the resolutions in the Communiqué are adhered to.

 The registration, counting, tabulation and tallying processes as well as non-publication of the disaggregated data would be investigated by the committee.

Currently, SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party)-led government is still perceived as an illegitimate administration even after the dialogue until the committee unearths the truth about the June-24 elections.

 It is hoped that only such conduct will bring peace and stability to Sierra Leone.

“For us, our interest has always been and will continue to be the peace, stability and development of Sierra Leone,” APC supporters said.

That notwithstanding, the questions APC supporters pose to the ECSL (Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone) boss, Mohamed Konneh is: why is he refusing to publish the disaggregated data by polling stations and districts? What are they hiding and who are they working for? What audacity do they have to deny the request of the people of Sierra Leone?” Dr Samura Kamara asked in a press briefing held at the New Brookfields Hotel in Freetown just few days to the election.