By Jarrah Kawusu-Konte
In the blazing midday sun of Bo past Friday, 22 August 2025, Dr. Ibrahim Bangura arrived to a scene suffused with collective longing and the palpable crackle of anticipation. Against a backdrop of rhythmic drumming and vibrant cultural displays, APC supporters gathered in a groundswell of emotions, old scars, and fragile hope to welcome a man promising renewal. At its heart was more than political fervour, it is the weight of generations: loyal APC supporters in the Southern region, now shattered by disillusionment from unmet promises and unfulfilled change.
The symbolism of the venue was not lost on the crowd. Coronation Field in Bo, historically a space where communities confer recognition and celebrate authority, became more than a meeting ground. It was an invocation of legitimacy, an informal crowning of a leader whose appeal now stretches across Sierra Leone’s political geography. That afternoon, Bangura’s declaration to contest the party’s 2026 flagbearer position carried gravitas. “I am seeking the leadership of the APC because I have the capacity to unite this party…I want to restore respect for party structures,” he urged, reminding the gathering of his early roots reviving the Fourah Bay College APC student union post-1992 coup. The reception was as cheerful as it was a catharsis, an outpouring of solidarity pooled from past disappointments.
Then, two days later, in Lunsar’s expansive football field on Sunday, 24 August 2025, another wave of energy surged. “Huge crowds” thronged the venue to welcome a scholar-politician whose reputation precedes him. As he mounted the stage, the skies opened in a sudden downpour, drenching the multitudes. Many thought he would retreat. Party enthusiasts rushed to shield him with an umbrella, but Bangura waved it away. In the rain, with water streaming from his shoulders, he stood firm, voice rising above the storm. It was as if nature itself tested his resolve, and he answered with calmness and humility, refusing to abandon the people who stood exposed with him.
At that decisive moment, instinctively, the influential and well-organised Iron Ladies made their own choice. Leaving the comfort of their dry canopy, they crossed into the rain, mounting the drenched stage to stand shoulder to shoulder with their leader. Their gesture was more than symbolic, it was sacramental, an oath of solidarity and an act of abiding faith in Bangura’s philosophy and his promise of renewal, both for the APC and for the nation. The sight of generals of the party braving the storm with him seared itself into memory: a leader and his vanguard, tested by the elements, united by conviction.
That image, the scholar standing unprotected in the rain, flanked by his Iron Ladies, speaking to soaked but unyielding masses, will linger in Sierra Leone’s political memory. It was not mere spectacle; it was a baptism of resolve. The rains, long symbolic of renewal and cleansing across African tradition, seemed to anoint him as a leader of resilience, a man ready to weather storms with his people rather than tower above them. Here, in Sierra Leone’s North-West, the legacy of APC dominance remains, but so, too, does the anger directed at repeated failure and political neglect by the SLPP-led administration. People stood shoulder to shoulder, driven by hunger, for electricity, water, roads, education, dignity, voices moving in unison, demanding leaders who could feel, not merely command.
Throughout both regions, one message echoed: this was no ordinary politician. Dr. Bangura’s identity as a consummate scholar—Associate Professor at Fourah Bay College, Visiting Professor at Oxford, and a consultant with AU, ECOWAS, and the EU, stands in stark contrast to the caricatures of Sierra Leone’s past powerbrokers. He’s walked through zones of crisis, in peacebuilding, security, DDR, and witnessing how leadership failures rip apart communities. His campaign isn’t built on hollow promises but on scars mended by empathy, commitment, and service.
Drumming up the symbolism: Bo, the heart of the South, and Lunsar, a Northwest bastion, two regions pivotal to APC’s fortunes. In both, a tried and tired political order fractured optimism. Yet, Bangura’s gentle rhetoric held tight to both symbolism and substance: healing, unity, and construction. His speech in Bo transcended elections, it was an appeal to “see each other not as enemies but as partners in development,” a rebuke to the “toxic politics” of persecution and partisan bellicosity fostered by the SLPP.
In comparative perspective, consider Ghana and Senegal in recent times—where technocratic, inclusive figures (like Ghana’s Duramani Mahama or Senegal’s Bassirou Diomaye Faye in his rebranding) rose because they reframed politics away from basket-case patronage toward viable governance and reform. Dr. Bangura offers a similar arc: a return to “people-centered politics,” where the APC is not just a machine but a vehicle for mutual trust, discipline, and national renewal.
There’s a dramatic metaphor here: the APC as a fractured vessel, once proud, now leaking. Dr. Bangura is the master craftsman at the shipyard, carefully repairing its hull, reinforcing its keel, and re-hoisting its sails with disciplined purpose and moral clarity. His credibility isn’t performance. It’s lived experience.
In Lunsar, the cheers at “the huge crowd” went beyond pomp. They’re an act of indictment and invitation. Ordinary Sierra Leoneans, long tired of promises that evaporate in the rains, responded not because they expect instant gratification but because Bangura embodies tempered hope, with empathy for their struggles and a vision for deliverance.
APC’s future may well pivot on whether it embraces a leader who transcends the bitter cycle of tribal mobilization and personalistic politics, one built instead on intellectual rigour, inclusive rhetoric, and sincere service. As analysts already note, Bangura maintains a commanding lead in internal conversations, a “70 percent chance” of being the flagbearer, thanks to his credibility, clean image, and policy-driven mindset.
In the classic arcs of West African democratic renewal, this is that moment when a scholar becomes a symbol, when the everyday crowd—factory worker, healer, market woman, miner—looks to someone who seems made of their suffering and their aspirations. Dr. Ibrahim Bangura stands at that nexus, with Bo’s Coronation Field as the place of his symbolic crowning, and Lunsar’s rains as his baptism of resolve, now shared with the Iron Ladies who braved the storm by his side. He offers an APC reborn. For Sierra Leone’s 2028 horizon, he may be its truest compass.
