Speaking to this medium over the weekend on condition of anonymity, a top-ranking member of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) said “APC won the 24 June presidential elections hands down.”
He further stated “we have been emboldened to speak the truth and so give God glory while at the same time making the devil ashamed.”
The ruling party executive said he and thousands of members of the SLPP had been embarrassed by government’s insistence and many who just want job positions that he won the widely rejected presidential election.
The SLPP executive official said that before 24th June, 2023, the party had started the rigging process with the appointment of Mohamed Kenewui Konneh Chief Electoral Commissioner although he was an officer in the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).
That position at the FIU was enough to disqualify Konneh from being considered by the President to head the electoral commission. But, in true PAOPA fashion, the President got what he wanted as Konneh was speedily approved by the House although he didn’t go through the normal procedures to be given the job that in effect makes or breaks presidents and presidential hopefuls.
While there was wide and violent display of opposition from all sides of the political divide in the House, but more so from the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC), the Speaker overruled such objections and had Konneh approved to handle the election portfolio.
On the SLPP’s march to rigging and winning the 24 June, 2023 presidential elections, the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL), despite the tens of millions of United States dollars that was made available to the entity, procured substandard materials and so produced substandard voter identification cards that were so bad that many people couldn’t see their faces, with their outlines being treated as actual pictures.
The voter ID cards were so poorly produced that there were calls from within the SLPP and APC for Konneh and his subordinates to be investigated for possible fraud or corruption.
According to the SLPP executive, Commissioner Konneh and his subordinates at the ECSL continued the rigging process when time came for registration of voters across the country. While the commission limited the number of registration centres in the North-West regions, they increased those in the South-East, strongholds of the ruling party. However, despite the increase in the number of registration and polling centres in the South-East, the people failed to register in the kind of numbers the ruling party was hoping to achieve especially in Kenema.
The SLPP executive said this was the most disappointing episode in the electioneering process for the people of Kenema not to register in droves.
The people of Kenema, he went on, refused to register to vote because they couldn’t see tangible proof of the work SLPP claimed to have accomplished.
The people in Kenema complained to the party’s executive that no one lifted a finger to help them during their five years of hardship and suffering, only for them to come around during the election period to whitewash what they had failed to deliver.
Instead of going to register to vote, the people went to their farms where they said they could be assured of making ends meet.
The SLPP executive said things got so bad that the government declared a lockdown aimed at forcing people to register to vote. He also informed this press that the South-East polling stations received their boxes and other materials days before the election day while the North-West received theirs on the day of voting with polling centres in the North-West opening for voting between 12pm and 4pm.
Despite being given such a push in the right direction, the people of Kenema, according to sources said, although they would not support the APC, they were willing to vote to unseat the incumbent they accused of failing to keep his 2018 manifesto promises to them while he was now preaching a new verse of the same old song.
The people of Kenema did not consider voting for the APC as selling the SLPP out. In matters of national importance, the people believe that all allegiances to party, region, tribe and personality must be set aside. None of them, he said, should be compared to what the nation needs. Putting the country first many citizens in Kenema and the North-West voted against Julius Maada Bio, resulting to the APC having an unaccountable amount of votes on 24th June, 2023.
He went on to state that the APC had never garnered such votes from the South-East, which he said, was a testament to the tenacity of Dr Samura Kamara who made Kenema one of the focus of his campaign as he saw in them a people that cared about issues of national interest. The people of Kenema are tired of politicians who talk but fail to walk the way.
“As for me as an SLPP executive, I really cannot see how we could have won the 24 June elections. If the SLPP had won the 24 June elections, there shouldn’t have been the need for a peace conference that resulted to the tripartite committee. If the SLPP had won the elections in a free, fair and transparent manner, the APC wouldn’t have refused to go to Parliament and the councils. Because the APC knew they won the election that is the reason they initially refused to take part in the running of the government in the House and the town, village and or city councils across the country. If we had won the elections, the Americans wouldn’t have refused giving us the $400 million MCC grant; our development partners wouldn’t have held back funds needed to pay civil servants which led to government sacking tens of hundreds of such workers whose salaries were being paid by the international community. If we (the SLPP) had won the elections, we would have had all the money necessary for running the government in a smooth and seamless fashion,” said the SLPP executive.
The SLPP executive also went on to state that as a strong and high-ranking member of the SLPP, he couldn’t sit down and watch things deteriorate to where we presently are without him speaking the truth and so shame the devil. Sierra Leone is his only country as he does not have dual citizenship anywhere.
“The more we keep quiet when we see the wrong being perpetrated, the more the country will continue to suffer from unnecessary difficulties that are self-created. All the hardships our people are experiencing across the country are man-made. They resulted from the election mess Konneh have created; unless we address this by speaking the truth regardless of who will get hurt or their egos bruised, things will not get better,” he added.
The senior SLPP executive said, in the past, the APC and SLPP used to set party politics aside and agree on issues that affect the country. But now, it is party and region first.
Sadly, the so-called SLPP/PAOPA government didn’t work in the interest of the party or country since 2018; they worked for their own personal or selfish interest.
…TO BE CONTINUED