The opposition, All People’s Congress (APC) is pushing for a new election chief that will replace Edmond Alpha in whom they have no confidence.
They accuse him of having strong ties with the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), Sierra Leone’s second oldest political party.
By insistence, APC may succeed in having another election chief, but they would not succeed in Changing SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party)’s plan of winning the 2028 election.
APC politicians, through disloyalty to their party, have facilitated that winning.
At the moment, opposition politicians fear that the new election chief would rig the 2028 election in favour of the incumbent party, SLPP as it is the case with Mohamed Kenewui Konneh who they accuse of tilting the scale of in favour of the ruling party in the 2023 elections.
But, the fear will not benefit them since they fear what they have created; they lay a foundation which SLPP is capitalizing on to build political fortunes since a political party is formed mainly to win an election and exercise control over the machinery of government.
According to annals of global political history, APC is the only political party which endorse an election which international and local election observers say it is not free and fair paving the way for a successful SLPP second term. Such move struck local and international election stakeholders as well as the voters who risked it all to see APC in power again just after five years of SLPP rule.
SLPP’s second term will lead to a third term and possibly other terms as the thinks fit as “no one eats his cake and have it,” the words of Chief Minister, David Moinina Sengeh.
In all of these, President Julius Maada Bio will continue to dominate Sierra Leone’s political scene in the coming years.
In the post-election stalemate of 2023, APC politicians endorsed SLPP’s victory while grassroots members opposed the elections and called for either a re-count of the votes or rerun.
APC grassroots members wanted to see the election results verified by publishing them by polling stations and districts while APC politicians were persuading their low cadre members and supporters to accept the elections and wait until 2028, a date which they hope SLPP would hand over power to them.
One of the front runners in the 2028 agenda is the disgraced APC Scribe, Lansana Dumbuya who always invokes the six-month clause which provides for the relinquish of the party’s leadership by a defeated presidential candidate after six months following the elections in which he participates.
The purpose for invoking and popularizing the said clause is to see then flag-bearer, Samura Kamara out of the political scene for SLPP to strengthen its political existence.
It was not too long after they started branding Samura Kamara as a former flag-bearer so that he could give way to another person who would lead the party in the 2028 elections.
It did not stop there as APC have devised tactics of deceiving or misleading the peace mediators whenever they visit Sierra Leone to assess the extent to which the tripartite recommendations have been implemented. Most times, the peace brokers would return home empty-handed without getting any serious information from them.
Even the party’s public relations wing seems weak in disseminating accurate information to the grassroots members and supporters of the party as they hope that keeping them in the dark would weaken them.
If depriving them of accurate information does not work, the leadership would, most times, call in the police on false allegations that their supporters wanted to foment chaos, and must be arrested to stop them.
Police response would be swift, and all those on APC premises would be hounded and detained for days and later released on bail with strict conditions.
The secret of calling in the police to conduct raids at the APC office was exposed following an exchange between the police chief and the APC scribe who himself recently fell into the police net.
For those who can read between the lines and interpret would realize that Dumbuya’s arrest was a mere ploy to eschew rational thought.
No right-thinking person would imagine that Dumbuya would utter such derogatory remarked against the presidency, but he did it deliberately for him to be arrested hoping that APC members and supporters would come out in their support as usual.
But, the people were not moved as they have woken up to the tactics and ploys of their politicians.
In plain terms, Dumbuya’s encounter with the security forces during their so-called “mammoth meeting” was not the first; it was the second in a row.
In late February, 2023 after a National Delegates’ Conference in Makeni at which Samura Kamara was elected; the APC scribe was the only top-ranking APC official who went his way alone when the entire executive moved en masse in a vehicle to jubilate with the people.
He passed through the presidential lodge where he fell in the hands of the guards, and was beaten up and nearly stripped naked. The guards subsequently went away with it, as it was a deal.
The negative contribution of the National Reformation Movement (NRM) camp in the APC could not be ruled out when one comes to assess the current situation the APC faces.
The NRM consists of power-thirsty young men and women who seem ready to see that old folks are kicked out of power although they had little or no experience to move the party forward.
Clad in the cloak of purifiers of the party, they take APC to the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court demanding for reforms which the court nodded in agreement.
According to the court ruling, APC was forced to inject critical reforms in the party’s constitution according to NRM’s demands.
As the party was about to move after its reformation, another batch of NRM led by Alfred Peter Conteh, residing in the United States filed another lawsuit demanding the Ernest Koroma executive to step aside on the grounds that their mandate was had expired.
Owing to a ruling handed down, by Justice Adrian Fisher, the executive had no alternative but to step down while an interim body ran the party.
The interim body known as the Interim Transitional Governance Council was led by Conteh himself who was also immersed in alleged massive corruption.
The allegations came out when he ordered that he should be in charge of all funds in the party’s coffers as well donations coming from local and international sources.
At the time APC was battling with court cases, SLPP was well prepared and composed to face a completely fragmented party into an open encounter.
Little wonder that SLPP politicians usually tag APC politicians “unprogressive” and “selfish.”
In all of these scenarios, Ernest Koroma’s contribution to a currently messy APC also features prominently in the debate.
After he left power in 2018 under dubious circumstances, ex-President Koroma went missing for days and later surfaced at APC Headquarters in Freetown where he assured supporters that he would bring back APC to power in 2023 since President Bio was a one-term President.
This assurance instilled complacency in the vast majority of APC members and supporters only to see that President Bio won the 2023 election, a move that will see him rule Sierra Leone for two consecutive terms.
Koroma who assured his fellow APC members of restoring the party to power is currently in exile with an albatross hanging around his neck.
The former Head of State battles it out with treason allegation as he is accused of masterminding the November 26, 2023 coup which claims the lives of dozens of military personnel.
Ernest Koroma also left behind an unfinished project of reviewing the national constitution which the Bio regime is ready to complete as recommended by Justice Edmond Cowan who led the defunct Constitutional Review Committee.
The Constitutional Amendment Bill if implemented to the letter would see APC in the political wilderness for years to come.
These negative actions embarked on by APC stalwarts are big opportunities which SLPP would capitalize on to consolidate power for years to come.