Have you ever wondered why you probably never saw Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara and Honourable Chernor Ramadan Maju Bah campaigning together during the past presidential elections?

Supporters and sympathisers of the All People’s Congress – APC party across the length and breadth of the Central Business District have in the main blamed the reason for the party losing the presidential election for the second time in a row on their former party Leader and Chairman, ex-president Dr Ernest Bai Koroma. APC partisans also blamed Koroma even for the loss of the 2018 polls. In fact when the former Chairman of the then National Electoral Commission, Mohamed N’faa Alie Conteh had wanted to draw the attention the past leadership to electoral fraud that he noticed in the 2018 elections in the South and East, that had to do with over voting, Conteh sent former President Koroma WhatsApp and SMS messages in a bid to attract his attention to the problems of electoral malpractices, to which the former APC leader refused to reply. He didn’t pay attention to concerns raised by the ex-elections chief. He even didn’t reply to the messages, nor did he answer any of the calls placed to his phone concerning the issues in question. To an extent, when Alpha Kanu and others were told by Conteh, they went to see Koroma at Presidential Lodge with concerns about over voting and the need for vote cancellations as was proposed by the ex-NEC boss, Conteh. At the Presidential Lodge, Kanu and others informed Koroma that Conteh has been trying to reach him to inform him about over voting in the strongholds of the SLPP. They informed Koroma that Conteh had been calling him to talk to him but he couldn’t get through. Koroma then replied that he had also been trying to reach Conteh but his line couldn’t go through. There and then Alpha Kanu called the former NEC chief and tried to pass on the phone to Koroma so that he could have talked to Conteh on the subject matter, but Koroma deliberately failed to take to the phone from Kanu and talk to the former elections chair, Conteh, saying, “You just wait I will deal with him” on the deceitful pretext that he had earlier called Conteh and he didn’t pick his calls. So Alpha Kanu and others were left shocked, speechless and immediately thereafter the presidential elections result was announced with Bio and Sierra Leone People’s Party – SLPP declared winner of the 2018 polls.

That was how Koroma deceitfully sold the 2018 elections to the SLPP and Bio, for which he can hardly skip blames for Bio’s victory. A thing good number of APC partisans can hardly forgive Ernest Bai Koroma for selfishly trading their future to the SLPP and Bio as if he had already signed a deal with him.

Alieu Badara Turay, 28, at Belgium in Freetown said he was told by people from Dr Samura Kamara’s close-knit group that many people in the APC party from across the country advised the APC flagbearer to approach former Vice President, Alhaji Samuel Sidique Sam-Suman and offer to make him his running mate for the 24 June elections.

‘Apparently Dr Samura Kamara was also for the idea. He was certain that with a combination of his personality and Chief Sam-Sumana’s popularity and respect across the country they would defeat President Bio,’ he reported.

Turay said the advice for Dr Samura Kamara as he started making his second attempt at the APC flag was to both try and assist using some kind of influence to get Chief Sam’s membership issue sorted and to openly make courtship overtures to him.

‘The idea was however not a good one with Dr Ernest Bai Koroma. He insisted on a repeat of the 2018 team, believing that with the people’s experiences these past five years they would easily vote for any change they can get, and that the APC would give them that change. But many people in the party had long seen the importance of the Kono vote in national politics since 1996 to 2018 onto June 24, 2023,’ he said.

His claim was also alleged by many APC supporters who said they had been made privy to such discussions between Ernest Bai Koroma and Dr Samura Kamara.

Bai Koroma’s ‘imposition’ of Chernor Ramadan Maju Bah on Dr Samura Kamara’s ticket did not go down well with Dr Kamara. He and Chernor Maju Bah were rarely seen together; they never made any public appearances together.

‘Chernor Maju Bah’s campaign nerve centre was in Brookfields while Dr Samura Kamara’s was at Wellington Street. We never saw them campaign together,’ Turay ended.

Also contributing to the discussion, Fatima Fofanah, 25, at the Malama Thomas Street market said, Kono was actually responsible for the SLPP win in 2018, coupled with the roles played by top APC bras. It is also obvious now that they also helped the SLPP win on 24 June.

‘What the APC should now learn from their election loss is that they should focus on Kono next time,’ she advised, to which many in her group agreed.

According to Fofanah and her friends, the people of Kono felt insulted by the way the APC embarrassed their Chief and son of the soil, Sam-Sumana during his membership saga and for members of the party from their part of the country not getting any executive positions in the party after the National Delegates’ Convention.

‘Dr Samura Kamara wanted anybody from Kono even if he had gotten Finda Diana Konomani, he would have been comfortable with the idea if it was someone from Kono. But he was impressed upon by Koroma to stick with Chernor Maju Bah because President Bio had decided to keep Vice President Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh as his running mate. Former president Koroma was worried about the party’s Fullah support base. But Hon Maju Bah is still young. He can be president in ten – twenty years. This was time for the east and northwest to unite for the APC victory,’ she said.

Fofanah opined that ‘Chernor Maju Bah is not known outside Brookfields, Wilberforce and the Western Area. Chief Sam is a national personality. He was also former Vice President of the Republic that is well liked in the east and southeast. Let us be realistic, the people in the southeast would be more comfortable voting for Sam Sumana than for Chernor Maju Bah. The party should have known that.’

Since the APC failed to see this, Fofanah said President Bio capitalised on the APC passing up on Chief Sam and Kono and started campaigning hard in Kono with his wife. Long time ago, she said Fatima Bio boasted that the SLPP will win Kono. At the end, because the APC listened to Koroma and sidelined Chief Sam and Kono, instead of C4C coming back to the APC, she said they went over to the SLPP ‘alongside the National Grand Coalition – NGC that had sprung forth from the SLPP’.

She added: ‘So we see that President Bio consolidated his gains in the South, East and in Port Loko to give the SLPP a first ballot victory on June 24’ even though it didn’t happen so.’

Meanwhile, after winning the elections Bio has named a cabinet that is ethnically and regionally sensitive with many young people appointed to key government Ministries, Departments and Agencies. The president also made some surprising cuts to his cabinet that has shocked many in and outside the SLPP.

Let us hope they will perform better than the former cabinet of the Fifth Parliament of the Second Republic.