THE NEXT APC FLAGBEARER 2

For this our second run of the “Next APC Flagbearer”, FORUM was inundated with calls, posts and the like from upset yet considerate All People’s Congress (APC) supporters and members who, although they loved the original or part 1 abstract article, not only drew our attention to how we often ignore and neglect our women in all things progressive, but that we have to consider the women with the equal potential and calibre as any potential male flagbearer after Dr. Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara in the APC.

Complementing their male counterparts, top performing female APC members who should definitely be part of the party executives for their wealth of knowledge, education and local and global connections, are profiled below.

There is widespread call for one of them to either be running mate or the flagbearer by many partisans.

1. HAJA ZAINAB HAWA BANGURA was born on 18 December, 1959. She is a politician and social activist who has been serving as the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON) since 2018, appointed by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. After Fourah Bay College, she moved to the United Kingdom for advanced diplomas in Insurance Management at the City University Business School of London and the University of Nottingham. She was a social activist when Sierra Leone was ruled by the National Provisional Ruling Council – NPRC military junta. Her Campaign For Good Governance for the holding of national elections finally drove the NPRC from power in 1996 and restored democratic government.

During Sierra Leone’s civil war (1991–2002) Haja Bangura spoke out forcefully against the atrocities committed against the civilian population by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and was targeted for assassination several times by that group. She also spoke against the corruption in the civilian government of President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and the atrocities committed against civilians by government soldiers. In June 1997, as fighting engulfed the country, Haja Bangura fled on a fishing boat to neighbouring Guinea.

In the 2002 elections, Bangura ran against Kabbah for the presidency of Sierra Leone and won less than one per cent of the vote, and her Movement for Progress (MOP) party failed to gain any seats in Sierra Leone’s parliament, which vote count she said resulted from corruption in the voting system. After the 2002 elections, she founded the National Accountability Group (NAG) to fight against official corruption and promote transparency and accountability in government. In 2006 she was in Liberia where she was appointed Director of the Civil Affairs Office in the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and was responsible for reconstructing 16 Liberian ministries and 30 government agencies after the Liberian civil war. She was foreign minister in Ernest Bai Koroma regime.

2. YVONNE DENISE AKI-SAWYERR, born 7 January 1968, is politician and finance professional, who is serving as the current mayor of Freetown, first assuming office on 11 May 2018. Prior to becoming head of the Freetown City Council, Aki-Sawyer had worked extensively in the United Kingdom financial and professional services industry. She had also taken either pioneering, or crucial roles in various charity and public service projects in the UK and Sierra Leone, including participation in the fight against Ebola in 2014 and the subsequent recovery initiatives.

She attended Saint Joseph’s Secondary School in Freetown. Aki-Sawyerr graduated with honours from Fourah Bay College in 1988 where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Economics. She earned a master’s degree in International Relations and Politics of the World Economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 1993, she received her certification from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Before vying for the top position at Freetown City Council, Aki-Sawyerr worked as a key member of the President’s Recovery Priorities (PRP), serving as delivery Team Lead, from January 2016 to October 2017. PRP was the second phase of a multi-stakeholder programme aimed at driving sustainable socio-economic transformation in Sierra Leone after the Ebola crisis. She played a crucial role in the design and implementation of “Operation Clean Freetown” which was part of the PRP programme that focused on introducing a sustainable system of household waste collection in the city of Freetown.

Aki-Sawyerr has been the mayor of Freetown since taking office on 11 May 2018 after winning a total of 309,000 votes representing 59.92% of the votes cast in the mayoral election. In 2023, she won her second term as mayor.

3. MARIAMA LOWE BANGURA a leading female candidate of the All People’s Congress (APC) is a dedicated female leader who is involved in the promotion of aspiring women for leadership positions in the APC. Mariama Lowe received massive endorsement from APC Women’s Leaders during the time she ran for the women’s leadership in the party. She believes that women have proven time and time again that when they have the opportunity they can certainly rise to the occasion and lead with strength, respect, and empathy.

“Having a woman like me in this position of leadership will only help to guide the party towards a place where gender equality is the norm, but it will also help to illustrate a future of endless possibilities for young girls so that they too can strive for greatness and aim to become formidable leaders in the party someday.”

Bangura believes that women are powerful agents of change, and the far-reaching benefits of diversity and gender parity in leadership and decision-making are increasingly recognised in all spheres. Still, women continue to be vastly under-represented in decision-making in politics, businesses, and communities.

“I am not afraid to share my ideas and thoughts, regardless of what others think. I respect myself enough to stand up for others, because of what I believe in, and the welfare of others. The Bible says women are created, redeemed, blessed, and gifted to be a blessing to those around them.”

She maintained that being the women’s leader means being able to be powerful and assertive, yet kind at the same time.

4. DIANA FINDA KONOMANYI is a Sierra Leonean politician who has served as Minister of Lands, Country Planning and the Environment (2015 – 2018), Minister of Local Government and Rural Development (2012 -2015) in the erstwhile Government of President Ernest Bai Koroma. Prior to her ministerial appointment ‘Iron Lady’ (as she is fondly called), was the Chairperson of the Kono District Council after winning a landslide victory in a local government bye election in her home town of Kono District. Following the election of the APC and President Ernest Bai Koroma in 2007, Diana was appointed Board Chair of the Sierra Leone National Shipping Company. An active member of the APC party, Konomanyi was the Eastern Province chairperson for nearly two decades (2005 – 2022) and a champion of the party’s victory in 2007 and 2012 general elections.

Born and raised in Koidu Town, Kono District, Konomanyi is widely considered one of the most influential female politicians in Sierra Leone. She is a close ally of Sierra Leone’s former president Ernest Bai Koroma and Dr Samura Kamara the APC’s presidential candidate for the 2018 and 2023 general elections.

She ran for a seat in the Sierra Leone Parliament in the 2007  general elections as the candidate of the All People’s Congress (APC), but lost on  a narrow  margin to the then incumbent parliamentarian Hon Emmanuel Tommy of the Sierra Leone People’s Party. Before entering politics, Madam Konomanyi was an entrepreneur and philanthropist of some standing. During the 2007 general elections she was popularly considered as a potential running mate to President Ernest Bai Koroma. In her quest for further education, Diana recently completed a Master’s Degree in International Affairs (MIA) from King’s College London and also attended the London College of Fashion in Tottenham, London.

5. NANETTE BEATRICE EFFULABI THOMAS is a long-time member of the APC party. After fleeing the country during the Civil War, she lived for a time in Texas, where she led the APC’s Dallas chapter. In 2011, she returned to Sierra Leone to become the national coordinator of the country’s Attitudinal and Behavioural Change programme, established by President Ernest Bai Koroma.

The following year, she was named Activist of the Year by the country’s National Commission for Democracy, for her work on “attitudinal and behavioural change” as well as women’s issues, anti-corruption efforts, and other activism. She was appointed minister of political and public affairs in Koroma’s government in 2016, becoming the first woman to hold the position.

Since leaving the cabinet in 2018, when President Julius Maada Bio took office, Thomas has continued her involvement in APC party politics, particularly its Women’s Wing.

6. ISATA BUSSOH KABIA is an APC activist who has served in the national parliament, the Pan African Parliament and as a government minister. Kabia was born in Sierra Leone but moved to the UK when she was 8 where she became involved in fundraising even before the Civil War began in 1991. Kabia would take holiday jobs to pay for her later visits to Sierra Leone. She graduated in biochemistry in England before she went to America. In the USA she organised a group called African Women of Substance who raised funds and conducted protests. She later took an MBA with the University of Milan. She is supported by Vital Voices as an “Engage Fellow” and by the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Foundation as an Amujae Leader.

She was working in the office of her country’s president as an advisor on diaspora affairs until she decided to be the first woman to contest the Port Loko District constituency. In the 2012 Sierra Leone election she gained nearly 90% of all the votes. She stood for the All People’s Congress party.

She became the Rapporteur of the Pan African Parliament in May 2015. Later that year she made the media when she chose as her private members bill a Safe Abortion Bill. In 2018, she was moved from being the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation to be the Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs. In 2018, her party named her as part of a group that would review the country’s constitution and make it fit for purpose, although the country was not scheduled to have new elections for five years her party wanted to suggest revisions to the constitution.

7. SUNKARI KABBA-KAMARA served as mayor of the city of Makeni until June 2023. She surprisingly defeated the incumbent mayor of Makeni Moses Musa Sesay in a landslide in the APC primary election held on September 2, 2012, in Makeni.

She won the 2012 mayoral election with 86.95%, over her main opponent Abu A Koroma of the SLPP, and was sworn in as mayor on December 22, 2012. Her inauguration ceremony was attended by many senior members of the APC party, including Sierra Leone’s president Ernest Bai Koroma.

8. MADINA RAHMAN was deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation who lived in New Jersey before she was first appointed Consultant in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in 2013 and then Deputy Minister in 2012.

9. MIATTA KARGBO is former Minister of Health and Presidential Advisor for Health, HIV/ AIDS, including Social Welfare and Children’s Affairs, and Labour and Social Security in the Strategy and Policy Unit of the administration of former President Koroma, later as Minister of Health and Sanitation.

She left political office in 2014 and thereafter got a consultancy as Coordinator – Social Protection and Capacity Building Post-Ebola Recovery, a DfID-funded Project under the Presidential Delivery Team (PDT).

10. KALLAH KAMARA was NRA commissioner general during the Ernest Bai Koroma regime that would also make a fine female candidate for the APC flagbearer.

FORUM will profile the women with the most potential as per partisan participation in this on-going debate.

To be continued…