One of the leading contenders for the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) flagbearer in the 2023 presidential poll, former Minister of Internal Affairs, Retired Major Alfred Paolo Conteh has last Saturday 6 July, 2024 urged the APC to lead the people from the front. He charged that the leadership of the APC party must take a front position space rather than always staying in the backroom. According to Conteh, an opposition’s responsibility is not a back stage work but a front roll task, wherein the leader is charged with the mandates of appropriately challenging and addressing critical national issues. “A leadership must start from the front not at the back like what is being done by dull leaders of the APC. According to him, there can only be strong and mass followers’ support when a leader leads from the front”, said Rtd. Major Alfred Paolo Conteh in an interview with a popular US-based online TV talk show With Yard.
Speaking from his London home over the weekend, he elaborated on critical issues that have militated against the APC party since 2018 to date. Rtd. Major Alfred Paolo Conteh disclosed that the APC leadership is always playing to the gallery as if he is not concern while the people continue to suffer in the hands of bad governance as if there is no opposition in the country. He observed that until the APC leadership both in the House of Parliament and those at the party’s national secretariat at 11A Railway Line Brookfield, start challenging and addressing serious national issues, the situation will not be transformed. Alfred Paolo Conteh said that the people are disgusted, fed up and tired of hearing excuses from APC leaders, especially about the June 24 presidential election and the weak failed leadership role played by Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara in protecting the people’s votes. He noted that the current leaders of the party always pretend to have complete lack of knowledge of what to do in moving the party forward and in advocating for and on behalf of the people in the House as an opposition party.
He urged APC leaders to lead from the front now or they hands off the affairs of the APC party and leave. He added that most times what is expected from APC leaders are always different from what they say in public, citing the recent press conference hosted by APC MPs at the party’s national headquarters in Freetown. Alfred Paolo Conteh continued that APC MPs behave with deliberate anomalies as if they don’t have the requisite capacities to serve the party in the House of Parliament. He said, that is why APC MPs are always in support of the passing of all sorts of bad laws at the advantage of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party.
Alfred Paolo Conteh attributed the major problems of the APC party to leadership, reiterating radical leadership change in the APC party, pointing out that the party needs a politician with what it takes to lead the APC now and not until 2028. He called for a fearless one with the willingness and readiness to lead the people from the front, not at the back as it is happening now. According to Alfred Paolo Conteh, this not about the former presidential candidate, Dr Samura M. W. Kamara and the APC party, but about the progress and development of the country. In what appears as if the people are tired with the incumbent ALC leadership, is now on the lips of many including partisans calling for the immediate replacement of Dr Samura Kamara with a formidable leadership who will take the APC party to the 2028 presidential election and earn the party a landslide victory.
