To say there is peace, unity and quietness in the opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) party for now is a blatant lie. To say Dr. Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara loves the APC party and that sincerely he would want to see the party in power in 2028 with another Comrade as President is also a big fat lie. Dr. Samura Kamara like his Sierra Leone Peoples Party rival in the 2017 and 2023 Presidential Elections, now President Julius Maada Bio still wants power; and he wants it through the APC at all cost. If this is not so, Dr. Samura Kamara would have since spoken out the truth to the APC party and supporters on the reasons behind his lackluster behaviour as leader and flagbearer of the party before, during and in the immediate aftermath of the 2023 election that saw the APC subdued into yet another opposition circle beyond the will of the people voted massively for the party but Samura’s lackluster attitude and sheer indecision could not protect those votes.
The reason behind all of these is Dr. Samura Kamara. He was leader, the gate keeper and flagbearer and as such, the bulk stops at him; his decision or indecision and by all indications, the reasons why the APC finds itself in this quagmire and in an inactive paralysis is principally because Dr. Samura has kept his lips tight over the truth and rationale behind his indecision thereby holding the party to ransom. He has decided to malign the very political party that gave him opulent popularity by not creating his own parallel party office and a parallel communications system using insensitive bloggers whose source of information about the APC is only Dr. Samura or his protégés. Whatever that comes officially from the APC National Secretariat his bloggers will treat with disdain.
It would appear that going to the 2023 elections, Dr. Samura had already conceded defeat because of his apparent early signs of conceding to the mechanics Julius Maada Bio and his caboodle of electoral thieves were putting in place. Samura certified the rogue voter identification cards skewed by the Bio administration and also was conspicuously silent over other attendant issues including the voter verification even when alarms were raised by party members about the criminal tendencies of the process. He cunningly dragged the party’s Executive and the entire party membership to the New Brookfields Hotel to listen to yet another of his boring statements on the trending issues at the time including a seventy-two hours (72 hours-3days) ultimatum to the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL) to give a disaggregated breakdown of the voter register only for to calm down nerves of an agitating national population which was out rightly suspicious of the criminal intent of the ECSL with the full power of assurance and protection by the incumbent. That ultimatum went down the throat of the ECSL Commissioners and incumbent President Bio like ice water. Dr. Samura thereafter assured party supporters to go out and vote and that their votes would be secured and protected. Nothing happened. APC votes in the whole of the southern province and part of the east were left as naked and as vulnerable as sheep in a wilderness, while the ECSL and the SLPP were therefore accorded the edge to manipulate the election outcome exactly the way they had mathematically worked it out on paper to satisfy their whims and caprices even though in reality their answer could not march the test of time. But they were determined to hold on because they knew that they have their spin man within the main opposition and that being Dr. Samura Kamara. Nothing again happened even when those cooked-up results were announced and Maada Bio’s swearing-in madly rushed into as if it was for Armageddon.
When the party took position not to participate in the governance of the state by withholding the participation of its elected Members of Parliament, Mayors and Chairpersons of Councils and Councilors, a peace dialogue initiated by the Sierra Leone Peace Commission attracted the International community’s involvement and a subsequent inter-party dialogue culminated in a National Unity Agreement (NUA) which he willingly signed. It later came out that key figures on the APC side refused to signed and that Dr. Samura Kamara ignored their advice and went ahead to sign that NUA document. Similarly with the Tripartite Agreement, it also came clear that at an emergency National Advisory Council meeting at the party’s headquarters in Freetown, Dr. Samura Kamara insisted on having the APC representatives insert the clause calling for a re-run rather than a recount which most of the APC representatives at the Tripartite Committee had suggested. The controversy resulted in a vote and majority of the NAC members voted for the re-run clause and it was inserted as an annex, which is why it is not among the eight (80) recommendations. Technically, therefore, Samura Kamara’s suggestion for a re-run to just be a part of the tripartite document was for his covetous agenda even as he knew that the clause is not part of the agreed recommendations. The Tripartite Committee never agreed on a re-run which therefore puts it under Dr. Samura Kamara’s category of divergent issues; all aimed at confusing and maintain a stranglehold support on the gullible APC grassroots. Dr. Samura should explain what drove him to that decisions and what was this influential force behind him that was other than a consensus APC party?
The onus of explanation is neither on the Co-chair of the Tripartite Committee, Dr. Kaifala Marah nor on any other member. This is Dr. Samura’s decision; he should give the raison d’etre for it. The APC Tripartite Committee was in constant touch and consultations with Dr. Samura prior to reaching decisions on all of the critical issues they encountered and the fact remains that he was always given his way as leader and erstwhile flagbearer.
What Dr. Samura Kamara is doing to the APC by refusing to come out and speak in order that the party can once again stand on its feet to run to winning the 2028 elections is far beyond seeking electoral justice. He is wickedly reaping off the psychological and emotional strength of APC supporters including the elected Members of Parliament, Councilors and even the National Executive and Executives across the board. Those of his convergent issues which are subsumed in the Tripartite Committee recommendations should have been the focus for Samura and the APC party. Be it as it may, it would appear as if he has now realized that his backyard forces behind his decisions to sign the agreements and insertion of the re-run clause have hoodwinked him into stupor and to save his slippery fall down, he has held on to the APC party as responsible for his unwitty decisions. A leader must be transparent in his dealings and once he steps out of that transparency circle, he falls in the trap of misdirection and that is where Dr. Samura now finds himself.
During the Tripartite Committee engagements, it was widely rumored that he held a secret meeting with President Bio facilitated by the Catholic Arch Bishop and that cash exchanged hands. Why the meeting which Dr. Samura did not seek authorization for from his APC party and what actually transpired in reality in that clandestine meeting has never been made public. Dr. Samura Kamara should come out clear on this too. He cannot continue holding the party to ransom while he is pursuing his personal agenda. He should know that the APC is bigger than him.
This entire systematic stranglehold on the party is also to secure his third chance as flagbearer of the APC in the 2028 election. In fact this is the elephant in the room as far Samura and his cohorts are concerned. They are saying that even though he has had is constitutional right of a second chance, he has done so under two different APC Constitutions to wit, in 2017 under the 1995 APC Constitution and 2023 under the revised APC Constitution 2022. He and his pack of doom-seekers are of the opinion that he still has another chance under the revised Constitution 2022. His surreptitious plan to further hold the APC party to ransom through court litigations if he is not accorded that chance stands looming over the party. How could Dr. Samura treat the APC like this? He also needs to explain why this acrid penchant of frivolity against a political establishment that did everything to make him President? The quest for explanation is the responsibility of Dr. Samura and not any member of the Tripartite Committee. He should come out clean on all these controversial issues. He should speak out to let the APC be; as for concerned APC supporters, his macabre fight he has personally initiated with the APC party is for his own selfish aggrandizement and perhaps his current paymaster, President Maada Bio, who had earlier stated he will not hand over power to a succeeding APC government. Perhaps, Dr. Samura Kamara is among the architects of that diabolic plan that is sure to rudely go against the will of the people; indeed the will of people’s power.
Let Samura Kamara come out to explain to the people of Sierra Leone. Let him explain in simple terms to APC supporters what assurances he was given prior to the NUA and the Tripartite and what conditioned him to insist on inserting a re-run in the annex of the Tripartite document when he full was aware of the intransigencies of the ECSL and of course the hypocrisy of the international partners in being decisive on any tangible action against Maada Bio, the ECSL and other crude players in denying the majority of Sierra Leoneans in choosing their leader? Come on Dr. Samura. Speak out and let the APC be.