EBK’s Manipulation In APC Exposed

Titus Boye-Thompson, Accra Ghana

This is an article that is written to state and defend some salient facts and positions concerning the future of the All People’s Congress Party, many of which, if not taken with the severeity of their implications into consideration, would leave the APC more scattered and fragmented than it is now. It is crucial for the party and by extension the country that the APC wins the next elections, but this will never happen if the party is discomboluted by vagrant noises about unity, electoral fraud and contrary stakehholders holding back the articulation of the vision of the founding fathers of the APC to ransom. Lets call a spade a spade, the SLPP are not in the business of shooting themselves in the foot, so any talk of a two term revolving door between the APC and the SLPP is false, no talk this time of a compulsory regime change by the International community will work, and definitely, there is no agreement that Maada Bio must hand over power to the APC come 2028. When we take these issues at their level of seriousness, then we are left with only one option for the APC, “be strategic or you perish in opposition”, because, anything short of a framework for electoral justice come the next elections, the SLPP will steal the votes of the people again and impose their mandate on an unwilling electorate. At that time, the APC will foolishly rush into court to challenge the results, only for the Judiciary to validate the fraud and dismiss their appeals in their entirety. If not careful, the SLPP would also go to court and take over some of the seats easily won by the APC just to take control of Freetown and the House of Parliament. While these scenarios are bad for democracy, it is nothing near to the apparent fraud that the APC itself is currently planning in order to impose a candidate that will represent the interests of its former Chairman and Leader, who currently languishes in exile in Nigeria with a treason trial over his head like the sword of Damocules. So in a nutshell, unless the former Chairman and Leader of the APC, Dr Ernest Bai Koroma, walks away, takes his hands completely off the party, stop his remote control and meddling with party decisions, attempting to orchestrate a self-styled regime change agenda via a very weak proxy candidate and allow the party to evolve generically, the APC would be as distraught and dismembered as a neglected carcass. It is a disgrace for a political Party that has, for long in its history, been a major force to now rely on handouts, false promises and extorting those so gullible to be milked as potential flagbearer aspirants. The party executive is on overdrive, as the time to elect a new flagbearer approaches. When the discourse contends with the practical aspects of politics on the ground, the entire APC leadership are rudderless, circumnavigating from hopelessness to disdain. Otherwise, is it not high time for the Party Secretariat to be educating its membership on its proceduires for electing lower level, District and Regional officers? Instead of embarking on externalising the framework for electing the next flagbearer, there are moves to contextualise electoral fraud as a political tool, simply to impose a proxy candidate on the rest of the Party. It is a disgrace that those who call themselves senior party stakeholders would rally around such tomes as to engage in the very same disconcerting parody of electoral injustice that is so very evident in the conduct of recent polls in the country at large. The very much vexed picture of a supposed recent NAC meeting was a catastrophe. The inclusion of Dr Ibrahim Bangura in that picture says volumes, so the people are now asking, on what basis was he invited to a supposed NAC meeting? This man that had the gall to have been parading with the APC Symbol in meetings across the country, as if he is already a flag bearer of the APC, but was never penalized nor cautioned? Why was Dr Samura Kamara, the current flag bearer, not invited to such an august array of party stakeholders coralled for a NAC meeting and included in that photo opportunity, one that gave such false asssertions of party unity? Was that meeting held to draw swords with Dr Samura Kamara in order to make way for Dr Ibrahim Bangura or was he, Dr Bangura, invited to be formally inrtroduced to the APC contenders? So many unanswered questions, but one thing that is glaringly clear is that Dr Samura Kamara has now set himself above the affray in the APC, his election as the next flagbearer of the APC would be a mandate he would recieve from the people of the APC and not a crowning glory from the party executive. Those who have watched the politics closely in the APC have drawn parrallels with the campaign run by others as against the approach that the so called “DIB Movement” has begun to deploy. It is quite apparent that this man is not without serious sponsorship from Dr Ernest Bai Koroma, former Chairman and Leader of the Party. His meteoric rise in the press and the volune of column inches he now devours, parallel a known strategy of the Koroma era – take over control of the press by leveraging a dedicated press and PR team to articulate your vision, and you are halfway there. Another footprint of Koroma’s politics is the deployment of all of his firebrand loyalists: such as Jarrah Kawusu Konteh, Jeneba Sesay and others who are playing a very active role in promoting the vision and purpose of a DIB Movement win come 2026.  The presumption is that the APC is in dire need of a new face, but what they fail to realize is that the party does not need nothing short of a clear cut strategy on which everybody or the vast majority can sign up to. The question of electoral injustice in 2023 is so stark that missing the opportinity to have marshalled the full force of the APC behind it is seemingly absurd. The calls for healing, unity and purpose would have been much better articulated behind the banner of a concerted effort against such egregious theft of the people’s mandate after the elections of 2023. Now that we are sounding the alarm bells, it is to guard against a further dismemberment of the APC party. One clear objective has always been to consider our stance with the people of Kono, who  strand the chance of giving the party a major stake in that part of the country, such as to even tilt the balance of power. Kono does have an especial resonnance for the APC party, if it is serious to win and take over the government. While political observers have welcomed whisperings of a potential collaboration between the erstwhile flagbearer, Dr Samura Kamara and the former Vice President, Alhaji Chief Samuel Samsumana, seasoned political activists have augmented this potential as a formidable collaboration for victory, calling to mind of how welcomed the APC would then become for giving the most favorite son of Kono a second chance at political leadership in the APC. This author also endorse the fact that such a coalition would become formidable and structured, not only to remove the SLPP from power and with a landslide, but also strengthened enough to garner support from other party stakeholders, knowing that the new face would have been a new approach as much as it is about promoting two of the most loved politicians in contemporary politics in Sierra Leone.