Is Ibrahim Bangura EBK’s Third Term By Proxy?

By Titus Boye-Thompson, Accra Ghana

The speculation of a third term ambition of the former President, former Chairman and Leader of the All Peoples Congress is not new. What is obscure about its existence till this day is the fact that this vaunted ambition still lingers on, and there are now visible attempts to combine political energies of a much younger generation to bring it to fruition. As if leadership of a political party is a beauty contest, the continuing overtures to the former President, which encourages him to habour such urbane ideas are a major cause for his present imbroglio with his once favourite politician and protege, who now occupies the seat of Presidency. On his part, President Julius Maada Bio has made it abundantly clear that he neither supports nor condones any such chicanery from the former President. President Bio has made it a condition of the former President’s continued forced exile that he must ensure that his involvement in Sierra Leonean politics is very much discontinued, otherwise he would take some bold steps to rescind the “medical excursion” in Nigeria that the former President is currently languishing on. Needless to say that the former President is known to be very uncomfortable in Nigeria and now craves for a return to Sierra Leone. What stops him is that he has not been given any assurance that his position may be altered by his return, while reports coming in from the Government is that he is very likely to be arrested and held in custody at a secure location rather than be alllowed to enjoy the restricted leisure of a house arrest in his mansion at Makeni. The case against the former President has gotten worse in his absence, and there are now furtive attempts prevailing on President Bio to review his assent to the former President’s stay in Nigeria on medical grounds. In all circumstances, it is beginning to look very likely that President Bio may, at some point, consider pushing the ECOWAS to allow him the fiat to mandate the former President’s return to face the law in Sierra Leone in return for some concessions on his seeming hard line positions on some key issues, especially on political legitimacy and his sway on some decisions that  may impact on the resillience of the Sahel States, while he remains President of the sub-regional block. It is not lost on many political observers that President Bio enjoys a much more than cordial relationship with France’s President Macron, who, it is believed, was mainly responsible for the choice of Bio as ECOWAS President against the Senegalese President, due to his alleged estrangement from France. President Bio was known to have flown directly to France immediately after his elevation within the ECOWAS, and it was while in France that he was alleged to have made the comment that the Leader of Guinea Bissau should consider stepping down, since he is a Military and not a civilian Head of State. It is no secret that France is losing its grip on its West African and Sahel States, so it needs an ally in the ECOWAS to bring these governments back to its influence through moral suasion. President Bio’s new position is being feted by France so that he can be seen to act as a neutral go-between to help bring back the Francophone countries together as a unit under France, in much the same way as the English nations are aligned to the Commonwealth of Nations. While there are many high level political manouvres in President Bio’s arsenal to warrant that he moves to either prevent the former President from returning to Sierra Leone or otherwise have him held in secure isolatory inprisonment upon any return, many in his own party are pushing that the President maintain a focus on this issue of what to do with the former  secutity. This threat,  they argue, would be more amplified if the former President is the election of their internal party representatives and flag bearer choice for the next elections slated for 2028. Koroma’s new gambit has been to introduce a wild card into the political mix within the APC, only to evince people like Bio that he still has a large say over the decisions of the party. He has used many of his own ardent supporters to rally behind a new face in the APC’s leadership challenge, and in the process, has had to ditch many of his long serving proteges, such as Chernoh Maju Bah (Chericoco), his favourite and forced candidate for running mate in 2018 and 2023 alongside Samura Kamara, and Fitzgerald Kamara, his own personal lawyer and ally, who has stood by him on all cases of alleged criminality levied against him by the Bio Government. He also had to put the brakes on the ambitions of Bai Mahmoud Bangiura, his youth ally and proponent of the now defunct “Chairman for Life” agenda and a well liked protege, who suffered a period in jail as a suspect in the very alleged coup plot and treason trial that Koroma still faces. More significantly, the former President has turned his back on his own choice of flag bearer in 2018 and 2023, Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara, his former Vice President on two occasions, Alhaji Chief Samuel Sanmsumana, the renowned political philantrophist and party financier aka Jagaban, and not forgetting the other also running, such as Ady Macauley, Yvonne Aki Sawyer, Kelfala Marrah,  many of whom are former loyalists. The former President Koroma’s wild card, Dr Ibrahim Bangura (DIB),  is to all intents and purposes, a political novice, who seem to follow the exact same mold as Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara when he was first selected by the former Chairman and Leader as flag bearer to the APC in 2017. The mistake that is now being avoided is to erase the impression of his political naiveity of the college lecturer by surrounding him with a host of seasoned political activists and known allies to Dr Ernest Koroma to support a robust “agenda for change”, and to build a narrative of throwing out the old guard in one motion inorder to bring in a completely new face to the Party. This strategy may well backfire for the simple reason that though, as Dr Samura Kamara, the college lecturer was unknown in the party. It was the people who welcomed Samura Kamara into the party leadership as their own. Dr Ibrahim Bangura by contrast, has wormed himself into the acknowledgement of the younger generation through his involvement with the NRM campaign to unseat the party heirarchy. Whereas there is an attempt to sell off Dr Ibrahim Bangura as President Koroma’s chosen candidate, the grassroots are beginning to smell the whiff of betrayal by the former President, and hence are resisting any such parachuting of Dr Ibrahim Bangura on a turf that Dr Samura has worked so hard to build. The real battle, as the people of the APC now see it, is to build on the advocacy for open and transparent elections in 2028, and to see the APC back to power under its true leadership of Dr Samura Kamara. Moreover, it is expected that Dr Samura Kamara would be able to bring the party together by the choice of a running mate that reflects the diversity of the  support base. In all of these wranglings, what is clear is that any attempt to bring back former President Koroma to Sierra Leone would be inimical to a good and conducive political environment, while the threat of national security remains a very existential threat. For that reason, the SLPP Government led by President Maada Bio have to think seriouslyif it is worth the risk to have the former President return to Sierra Leone at this time and by extension, otherwise allow him to perpetuate a third term agenda by proxy!