Less than two years to 2028 polls, the rift between the PAOPA regime and members of the mainstream SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) is gathering pace at every tick of the clock.
The struggle is about who will take over after President Julius Maada Bio rides into the sunset. The PAOPA boys want to stay after President Bio while the old guards want their party back, but laws or rules must be followed.
The PAOPA/SLPP is led by President Julius Maada Bio and a handful of diasporans who have stayed out of Sierra Leone for several years, while the mainstream SLPP consists mainly of the old guards and the home-based.
A sharp contrast exists between the two opposing groups: the PAOPA boys believe in the radical and brutal acquisition and exercise of state power as their ideology is predicated on persistence, insistence and consistence.
On the other hand, the old folks are traditionalists believing that power should be peacefully acquired and exercised with due regard for others’ rights and interests even if they are opposition politicians. By all standards, the old folks’ ideology as old as the party itself.
John Opnjo Benjamin, former Minister of Finance and later Adviser to the President, was the de facto leader of the Old guards after Sama Banya and others retired from politics. But, taking of an advisory appointment from President Bio and subsequent dismissal might have damaged his standing and support among the grassroot.
The old guards argue that the PAOPA boys have stained their party through radical leadership, and it is time to take it back. As Benjamin looks somehow weak and tired as age no longer on his side, a veteran SLPP politician, Stephen Sahr Mambu from Kailahun was blazing the trail to take the party from the PAOPA boys.
He had a heated debates on radio and tv with the PAOPA politicians especially former Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Lahai Lawrence Leema.
The veteran SLPP politician, Sahr Mambu also held several press conferences condemning the manner in which President Bio was elected during the December, 2022 mini National Delegates’ conference held in Bo city, Southern Sierra Leone.
He argued that the conference was meant only to elect officials of the party and not a flag-bearer.
The election of President Bio for another second term, he went on, was “surreptitiously done” by the party’s erstwhile chairman, Prince Harding who faced a murder investigation at the Criminal Investigation Department. The old politician was mobilising like-minded politicians to have Bio’s election reversed and called for a fresh National Delegates’ Conference where a level playing field would be created for every flag-bearer aspirant.
Mr. Mambu was of the view that the PAOPA leadership style is alien to SLPP ideology and they had not to allow such system to take root.
However, Mr. Mambu like other old guards have kept low profile while President Bio tightens his grip on power.
SLPP, a party of academic elites, decades ago, is now tagged a party of narcotics (Cocaine, Marijuana and Kush) with little performance in state governance in almost eight years in power.
Apart from the drug trade, the PAOPA/SLPP, senior politicians say, has put up the most brutal and lethal government ever seen in the history of Sierra Leone. Such leadership style, they argue, is at the party’s detriment.
Daylight killings during protest, secret extra-judicial executions, disappearances of prisoners from government’s detention centres, kidnappings and cannibalism among others hallmark the PAOPA regime.
Gauged by their actions, the opposition leader, Samura Kamara made no mince of words in tagging the PAOPA regime as “ethnic militant cabal.”
Kamara made the statement while addressing some members of the diplomatic community and senior politicians at the New Brookfields Hotel in Freetown on the eve of the June, 2023 election.
The broad daylight thievery of the 2023 election is one that also lowered the prestige and morale of Sierra Leone’s second oldest political party. The SLPP is second in age only to the NCSL (National Council of Sierra Leone) formed by the Krio elites in Freetown.
NCL was first led by a Krio elite, Dr. Bankole Bright, but the party was abandoned to its fate owing to the little stakes in elections. In the absence of NCSL, SLPP became the ultimate choice for Sierra Leoneans, but its recent actions, especially the election rigging, are sure to hunt the ruling party in years to come.
If the 80 recommendations of the Tripartite Committee are strictly followed, SLPP will go for years without winning a presidential election in Sierra Leone.
The recommendations, anchored on the principle of electoral reform, will ensure a clean, fair and transparent electoral processes making it extremely difficult for the old party to make it in future polls.
With free and fair elections in the near future, it would be an herculean task for SLPP to win election as claimed by their former leader, Alex Prince Harding while exiting the chairmanship.
Prince Harding said during an SLPP meeting that “SLPP has never won an election democratically.”
Democratic winning of election means a clean and clear win devoid of rigging and thievery of votes.
As it stands, the only remedy is for the old guards who understand the party’s ideology to take it back and embark on image laundering.
A great many Sierra Leoneans still wonder how a party of elitism migrate overnight into thuggery and brutality.
A senior SLPP politician who chose to be anonymous told this press that the PAOPA ideology started with Bio and might end with him.
Looking back at the recent past, the SLPP politician said, it all started when President Bio who was an opposition leader lost the 2012 election to former President Ernest Koroma.
SLPP’s constitution at that time provided that any presidential candidate who loses an election should become ex-officio and replaced by another candidate.
It was this clause that forced Solomon Berewa, the party’s flag-bearer in 2007 to resign and give way to a new leadership after losing the elections to former President Ernest Bai Koroma.
Bio’s continued occupation of the party’s leadership supported by the grassroot comprising mainly inexperienced boys and a handful of SLPP stalwarts emboldened the movement.
As tension rose, Bio held the forte until another Delegates’ conference was held in 2017 in Bo city where he emerged flag-bearer to run again in 2018.
Fortune smiled at him as he was announced President of Sierra Leone, a moment that marked the arrival of a so-called New Direction.
In the early days of state governance, the New Direction turned into a misdirection.
In his leadership, President Bio sidelined most of the SLPP old folks who opposed him while giving lucrative appointments to most of the diaspora boys whose knowledge of state governance is somewhat limited as claimed by the old folks.
Senior SLPP politicians argue that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be run by a seasoned politician and diplomat who knows how to navigate the international environment to actualise the national development agenda.
They also contend that the party’s failures in national leadership is linked to the quality of ministers President Bio appointed.
With little space in state governance, the old folks have kept low profile waiting for President Bio to step down and have a new leadership.
However, there is a blunder on their part as they fail to take part in the amendment of the SLPP constitution that gave an edge to President Bio.
According to the new amendment, Bio will remain the party’s leader even when he shall have stepped down as President, a great privilege to continue to remaote control SLPP as is the case with the APC after Ernest Koroma steps down.
The strategy the old guards may adopt to take their party back remains unclear, but the people wait and watch as events unfold.