By Allieu S. Tunkara
A meeting of top APC (All People’s Congress) members has been aborted by thugs. Thuggery has become synonymous with politics, and spans through political parties especially the main opposition, APC (All People’s Congress). APC stalwarts, Abdulai Conteh, Mabinty Koroma, Herbert George Williams and others could not use APC headquarters for the meeting owing to thuggery.
The 35-Committee members form an interim body within the party to ensure a smooth transition from the Koroma-led executive to a new one. The interim body came into being after Justice Adrian Fischer handed down a verdict in May this year. None were allowed entry into the party office to transact business.
The thugs are vicious and ruthless in their ways. The aborted meeting has put back APC backwards. Had the meeting gone ahead, NAC (National Advisory Council) members and other important officials would have taken a date for the adoption of the reviewed APC constitution.
Other issues of membership within the party are also expected to be addressed in a date that would have been selected.
The stalemate still continues as thugs hang on the party premises. The party’s Secretary-General, Ambassador Foday Osman yansaneh has been accused of inciting thuggery. The incitement is to foment chaos and unrest in the party so that he can continue his secretary-generalship for months more if not years. Mr Yansaneh has denied any involvement into the thuggery.
“I am not aware of any thuggery at the party office,”Mr Yansaneh told this press in a telephone interview. The scribe however could not entertain further questions. A veteran APC politician who chose not be identified told this press that the Secretary-General was not ready to go.
He also accused Yansaneh’s boss, Ernest Bai Koroma of still holding the forte when their time was long overdue.
“The tenure of Ernest Koroma and Foday Yansaneh has expired six months ago,” the source told nightwatch. He seems highly suspicious of the scribe in respect of the violence at the party office. Out of vaulting political ambition, he went on, the Secretary-General did the same in 2006.
Yansaneh whose tenure had ended as party’s Secretary-General did not step down on time, a situation that resulted into chaos. The party returned to normalcy only after much effort, and went into elections in 2007. Currently, APC members especially youths are eager to see the backs of the old executive members so that the party could be placed on a sound footing.
They have always argued that their mandate has expired. Other credible sources have intimated this press that Ernest and Yansaneh wanted to sacrifice the party to ward off corruption charges hanging over their heads. Allegations of corruption are definitely albatrosses on their necks.
They would stop at nothing to stop the matters pending in court through political maneuverinngs. An ardent APC member, Ibrahim Bangura says APC is paving the way for an SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) second term through intra-party conflicts. Bangura has been quite critical of Ernest Koroma’s conduct from the outset.
“The former President is holding the party to ransom,” he said.
He believes that the move would not augur well for APC adding that no one is powerful than the party. Youths at a Calaba Town ‘Ataya’ base recently threatened that they would take to the streets if APC leadership does not take concrete steps to ensure a peaceful party. They were of the opinion that there could be no hope in 2023 elections if there is no peace in the party.
They also hope that the protest would send a compelling message to the authorities. Seeming refusal of the Koroma-led executive to step aside is one of the remote causes of chaos in the APC. Filing of rampant lawsuits has also been attributed to the executive’s penchant to continue in office. An APC member resident in the United States Alfred Peter Conteh recently sued the party asking the court to end the life of the Koroma executive.
After a back-and-forth movement, high court handed down a verdict requiring the Chairman and Leader to work towards having the new constitution adopted and to address membership issues in the party. The verdict aso barred close to 200 executive officials including the Chairman and the Secretary-General from taking active part in the formation of a new executive in the party.
It is this second part of the judgment that the koroma and his cronies does not want to comply with. The executive seems ready to stay despite the court order.
However a member of the party has told this press that court orders are sacred, and they demand reverence.
Flouting them, he said, may lead to consequences whose outcome could not be predicted. “Ernest Koroma and Osman Yansaneh do not want to go by the court’s directives,” they argued.
The main opposition, by all indications, is no longer at ease. The party’s peace is derailed through waves of lawsuits and court matters. APC is just reeling of the toxic effect of the NRM (National Reformation Movement) case.
The NRM, an offshoot of APC dragged the party to court in January, 2019 asking for an injunction to restrain the party from adopting the constitution. Alongside other demands, the NRM had demanded the expunge of the ‘Selection Clause’ from the constitution.
For them, the clause was the deciding factor for APC’s defeat in 2018. APC’s conflicts apparently are not meant for Dr Abdulai Conteh. Conteh has been out of touch with political realities for lengthy years. He sojourned for years in the Bahamas as an Appeals Court judge.
For Sierra Leone’s current politics is a strange planet for Dr Abdulai Conteh, and he needs a spacesuit. Other members of the APC say Koroma and Yansaneh run the risk being roped in for contempt of court for defiance of court orders.
The court waits for August 24 when the 90-day period prescribed by the court expires.