As APC Identifies Another Judas— Bio Calls House to Order   

By Henry T. Kargbo

As the opposition All People’s Congress (APC) party has in public notices issued and signed separately on Wednesday 5^th July 2023 by ten (10) elected local council officials and fifty-three (53) Members of Parliament elect who have resolved to boycott working with the governing Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP)-led government. FORUM NEWS SL is reliably informed that opposition resolve is being betrayed by Hon Mohamed Bangura and other unseen high profiled APC members.

Hon Bangura’s signatory column in the public notice signed by his colleagues remained unsigned, clearly indicating his anti-party moves against the APC decision to boycott working with the Julius Maada Bio-SLPP administration, specifically referencing opposition MPs’ nonparticipation in the running of the Sixth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone.

The move has been described by scores of APC party members and followers as a blatant political betrayal by Hon. Mohammed Bangura.

Moreover, to the bewilderments of the National Executive and other strategic wings of the APC party, Hon Mohamed Bangura failed to avail himself for a meeting of APC MPs and local council officials elect, hosted at the party’s National Secretariat, on 11A Old Railway Line, Brookfields in Freetown.

Hon. Bangura, who occupied forty-eight (48) on the list of fifty-four (54) elected APC MPs elect space provided for signatories to collectively signify their consents, remains blank to date.

Political pundits have described Hon Mohamed Bangura as an inconsistent politician, with records far back from the dying eras of the People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) party, where he served in the capacities of National Public Relations Officer and National Chairman respectively. Hon Bangura then left and registered the United Democratic Movement (UDM), which he later dumped and officially declared for the then ruling All People’s Congress APC party during the tenure of former president Ernest Bai Koroma.

With him in the APC, Hon Bangura was lucky to be first appointed National Coordinator, Attitudinal and Behavioural Change (ABC) Secretariat, Minister of Information and Communications, awarded symbol for an MP seat where he represented a constituency in the Fifth Parliament, and an already a re-elected MP for the Sixth Parliament.

With all those positions and remunerations that Hon. Mohamed Bangura has, and continues to enjoy from the APC party, he remains the only re-elected MP that has decided to his personal path.

In a related development concerning the controversial boycott of opposition APC MPs elect and their party’s nonparticipation in governance with the ruling SLPP, a public notice issued Thursday 6^th July, 2023 and signed by the Clark of the House of Parliament, Hon. Paran Umar Tarawally, “RE: Convening of the Sixth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone,” said that pursuant to Subsection (1) of Section 86 of the Constitution of Sierra Leone, the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Julius Maada Bio has directed the Clark of Parliament to convene the Sixth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone on Thursday 13^th July 2023 at 10:00am in the Chamber of Parliament.

The Notice called on MP elect to attend the sitting of parliament, adding that MPs elect should attend the induction programme scheduled in Parliament for Wednesday 12^th July 2023 at 10:00am in Committee Room One, Parliament Building, Tower Hill, Freetown.

The Public Notice also reminded MPs elect of Section 83 of the Constitution of Sierra Leone which states that: “Every Members of Parliament dully elected at the general elections of 24^th June 2023 shall, before taking his seat in Parliament, take and subscribe the Oath of Office for Members of Parliament as prescribed in the Third Schedule of the said Constitution on Thursday 13^th   2023.”