Just a day when news filtered through the public that Minkailu Mansaray is dead, dozens of youth linked to the SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) jubilated on the streets of Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital.
Clad in green T-shirts, the youth in a rickety van masqueraded Bai Bureh Road, east of Freetown, singing songs of joy. For the youth, it is a moment of elation and fanfare.
Such move has clearly showcased SLPP as a party that frowns at not only the coming to power of the APC party but also its very existence because they hate political competition and rivalry.
For decades, APC has proved to be the only potent political competitor and rival for the SLPP, and the only way is to neutralise such threat using whatever means available.
The means does not matter; it is the end that matters.
The people of Sierra Leone have seen it in most of their campaigns during SLPP’s internal elections as most of their speeches is how to deal with APC politicians.
Sierra Leoneans saw it clear in the speech of the erstwhile Women’s Wing leader, Fatmata Sawaneh now an Ambassador in neighbouring Guinea.
During her campaign in Kailahun, the Eastern region, Sawaneh said having her as a Women’s Wing leader of the party is about how to deal with APC implying that Sierra Leone’s development is never a focus.
She put her words into action during the Pa Demba Road prison massacre in which dozens of prisoners were killed by state security forces.
An audio on various media platforms portrayed the erstwhile women’s leader as someone present at the scene and even promised to make Sierra Leone sour for the APC politicians.
It is happening today as most top-notch APC politicians including former President Ernest Koroma are in exile.
Sawaneh is not alone in the move to wipe out APC, but other politicians do it too. When Lahai Lawrence Leema, erstwhile Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs appeared on radio or tv, he would threaten to crush APC politicians.
He also translated his thoughts and words into action during the August 10, 2022 protest in Freetown. Leema, at the peak of the protest, was said to have carried out mass killings in several communities in Freetown by removing people from their shelters and shot them dead.
President Julius Maada Bio is also on record to have tagged APC “a terrorist party,” and it is clear what terrorism means to the United States and Europe.
On the eve of the 2023 election, then incumbent candidate, President Bio’s main campaign massage was how to deal with then President Ernest Koroma if he failed to maintain himself as a statesman.
President Bio directly accused Ernest Koroma of financing the social media ventriloquist, Abdul Will Kamara aka Adebayor to rain invectives on him and other government officials.
Vice President Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh also re-echoed the statement of locking up the former President if he failed to comport himself as a statesman.
The move to clamp down or exterminate APC, historians noted, began in the days of then Prime Minister, Albert Margai who initiated the one-party project in Sierra Leone.
This policy echoes throughout history and cascades to the youth of today as they rejoice over the death of the APC Chairman, Minkailu Mansaray.
But, the death of Minkailu Mansaray never sounds the deathnell of the main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC).
Despite the challenges the party faces, APC still remains the largest political party in Sierra Leone, transcending the bounds of tribalism, regionalism and political affiliation.
While APC maintains its popularity in the traditional strongholds of Northeast, Northwest, Western Rural and Western Urban of Sierra Leone, the party makes impressive inroads in the South-East regions of Sierra Leone.
The huge number of votes APC got in the June, 2023 election is a testimony of its growing popularity in the South-East regions.
APC has an open-door policy caring less about whether one is a themne, Mende, Limba, Fula, Soso, Mandingo, Loko, Kono. It is a party for everyone despite one’s title and occupation earning it the nomenclature of a mass political party as directly opposed to an elitist party, the SLPP.
APC caters for the petty traders on the streets, handcart riders (omolangay pushers), commercial motorists (okada riders), tricycle riders, keke riders, drivers among others. No one is left behind.
Within APC’s rank and file, there is a place for even a street skinny kid with a funny name.
It is this political ideology that makes APC one of the hardest-working political parties in Africa.
It seeks to improve the people’s welfare by strengthening the country’s socio-political and economic capital.
This claim clearly manifested itself between 2007-2018 by the country’s infrastructural projects, the heavy investment in energy especially in APC’s first 100 days in power, the declaration of Free Healthcare for pregnant women, lactating mothers and under-five children still gathering pace to date, creation of jobs as seen in the arrival of London Mining Company, African Minerals Limited, SUCFIM, Leone Rock, Marampa Mines Limited among others to Sierra Leone.
Thousands of Sierra Leone youth were put to work thus creating less burden for the public sector.
an unsung hero, Samura Kamara has been pivotal to these achievements leveraging on his international clout and contact to build his motherland, Sierra Leone.
He knocked doors of the World Bank, IMF, African Development Bank, the Commonwealth, the United States, the United Kingdom and world class business executives to invest in the country.
It was during his tenure as Minister of Finance that Sierra Leone was rated the fastest growing economy in the world, and Sierra Leone blossomed and flourished at that time.
It is also hoped that APC will flourish when Samura Kamara takes over the baton of leadership.
For now, the party APC is still strong as long as Samura Kamara holds the forte of ‘Electoral Justice’ to bring the party’s June, 2023 election to victory.
It is clear that APC will collapse the day the wheels of the ‘Electoral Justice train stops to turn.
Although some APC members, supporters and sympathisers are disillusioned and disappointed with the slow-pace the train is moving, they however maintain the trust in the man at the driving seat.
From the outset, Samura Kamara earlier informed Sierra Leoneans that the fight to bring back APC’s victory will be “a marathon race” and others will not see its end.
He opposes shortcuts in the fight which might not augur well for the country’s peace, stability and national cohesion.
In most of his public speeches, Samura Kamara would put it quite simply and bluntly that not all fights call for abusive words or invectives, cutlasses, machetes and bullets, but wisdom, tact and civility. The 2023 election is one that calls for wisdom and therefore appeal to all his followers to refrain from violence and look up to the international community to bring back his victory.
He also appealed to senior APC members particularly the party’s executive to join him in the struggle to retrieve the voters’ mandate.
He hopes that Sierra Leone will rise again only if such noble objective is achieved although the top cream is yet to answer the clarion call owing to what many say a protection “parochial and selfish interests.”
Recently, moves have been taken by some senior APC politicians and party elders to restore unity, peace and cooperation among the party’s rank and file as steps that add strength to the party.
A letter that emanated from APC’s Elders’ Council called for a meeting with Samura Kamara to discuss the way to lasting peace and unity within the party.
Samura Kamara, in response to the Elders’ letter, accepted to meet them, but discussions must centre on bringing back the people’s victory and supporting the ‘Electoral Justice’ campaign.
The outcome of the meeting is yet to be discussed publicly but it is one that supports the party’s unity and strength amid the brutality, suppression, unlawful arrest and detention of APC politicians, and above all, brutal and unlawful killings in opposition strongholds.
Minkailu Mansaray will soon be replaced likely by his deputy Foday Osman Yansaneh although he too enjoys little trust among APC low cadre supporters.