If the All People’s Congress (APC) Party were currently occupying the seat at State House would they have given the carte blanche open sesame to the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) to go ahead and hold an outing, cum rally, in just its six or seven months in power? Certainly, a big NO!
Well the SLPP has done so. They have shown Sierra Leoneans what it means to be democratic. They have succumbed to the dictates of democracy, which largely crave for freedom of association and of assembly. They have done so without pausing, for a moment, to look at the ramifications surrounding this tacit approval for the APC to go ahead and hold an outing, though some have even out rightly reduced it into an APC rally.
Yes, the APC were out on Saturday and Sunday. Reports are that APC supporters and big guns thronged to the Bureh Beach in colossal numbers. Some have even described the crowd as mammoth, and it was out to tell the whole world how far the APC Party has come after the shock in the March 2018 polls.
There are even reports that the APC outing is just a tip of the iceberg, as there are many more similar activities in the pipeline, as Sierra Leoneans gravitate towards 2023 polls.
Of course, the SLPP will argue that the 2023 polls are a distance away and nothing should be alarming over the APC outing. They will also argue that they want to behave so democratically that Sierra Leoneans will vote them in again because of having behaved democratically.
However, the nightwatch holds a view that is diametrically opposed to what the SLPP believes in. We believe that the SLPP should not, in the first place, have given that carte blanche arrangement. It is another way to empower the APC. And that party made the best use of the time given to them. Did the SLPP see the pictures? And did those pictures define anything?
Since the APC lost power as a result of the March 2018 polls, the party has been embroiled in all manner of conflicts. Invariably the APC Party was fighting a battle, over the constitutional review of the Party constitution, with a young movement of party advocates in the party-the National Reform Movement.
Unknowingly to the SLPP, it was the outing that formed the venue for easing some of the political tensions within the APC.
We are not granting anything here, because it has already happened. But, for the future, the SLPP must critically look at this issue of granting permission to the APC for any similar exercise.
Many will argue that the democratic space must be opened for all Sierra Leoneans to avail themselves of the values and dictates of democracy. However, the APC may have behaved responsibly to encourage the SLPP to fall into the trap of granting them another chance again. But to all intents and purposes the democratic space must not be opened at the detriment of the SLPP. It has always been that whenever the SLPP stooped so low, to accommodate the opposition, disaster will always accompany the SLPP to its death bed. We don’t want that situation to occur again.
The SLPP can win hearts and minds without necessarily succumbing to the dictates of the APC or any other political party.
We really must be educated on this: do political parties generally ask for permission, from sitting governments, to go for outings? However social an outing is we don’t really know if political parties generally venture into them. SLPP, be warned! Once bitten twice shy, the saying goes.
SLPP, Pay attention!