Sierra Leoneans home and abroad are presently being let down by the opposition especially the All Peoples Congress (APC) party and its Interim Transitional Governing Committee’s chairman Alfred Peter Conteh.
It has now become crystal clear that the APC, ITGC’s Chairman Alfred Peter Conteh and other key opposition politicians and state personalities have continued to stand still and remain silent while a lot of anomalies and bizarre happenings in the governance realm are going on or taking place without being questioned or checked in order to clear the air and set the records straight.
A majority of people in Sierra Leone today are baffled and getting discontented as to why opposition parties like the APC, parliamentarians, civil society activists and other moral guarantors in the country are giving a mere lip service to addressing and tackling burning issues of state corruption and electioneering anomalies taking place in the country under the SLPP-led government without being meaningfully questioned or challenged.
It is no gainsaying that over the last four years or so the APC has not been taking any serious and strategic actions to call for thorough investigations of alleged corruptible practices being carried out by the presidency and senior state officials of government’s ministries, departments and agencies.
While issues of corruption and electioneering glitches have been unearthed and reported by whistle-blowers and media institutions like the Africanist Press, the opposition APC party has not been able to challenge the issues to ensure the people of Sierra Leone get better understanding of the abnormalities taking place in the country so as to take the powers that be to task. Hence the APC has been failing in their responsibility as a partner in development or a parallel government that is worth entrusted with state power or governance.
As well, the interim body of the APC, the ITGC, is also seriously handicapped that it has not been able to speak out with formal positions and actions against the deliberate and barefaced violations of electoral rules being done by members of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), particularly in the ongoing voter registration (VR) exercise.
The ITGC chairman Alfred Peter Conteh is rather aiding and abetting the plans being set and hatched against his party the APC by serving as a toothless bulldog while a lot of anomalies are taking place in the 2023 electioneering process, such as the voter registration exercise, the recent VR data of 80 per cent of the centres announced by the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) and its Commissioner Mohamed Konneh.
While the people of Sierra Leone have continued to see videos, hear messages and read publications in the social and traditional media of how ruling party members and politicians have been using the voter registration process to campaign, calling on people to register to vote for their party or candidates in the June 2023 public elections, the opposition APC party and its interim ITGC members could not come out clearly and strongly to publicly condemn such acts, take necessary actions against such happenings and capitalise on them to expose the violations of the electoral rules being committed by their opponents.
One of those who blatantly violate the no-campaign rule established by the Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC) in connection with the ongoing voter registration process is the SLPP Member of Parliament representing Constituency 010 in Kailahun district, Hon. Zainab Kama Brima, who was reported in the New Vision of Monday 12th September 2022 to have “urged citizens to register for development, and re-elect President Julius Maada Bio in the June 24th 2023 Parliamentary, Presidential and Local Government elections”.
Another act of violation or campaign is a recent video by state journalist Mahawa Alieu openly calling on people to register in order to vote for the SLPP-led government. Ditto the former foreign affairs minister Alie Kabba; ditto SLPP strong woman and former Women’s Leader of the party, Fatmata Sawaneh. Even the President of the Republic uttered a campaign message in a church during the first phase of the voter registration exercise.
With all these acts of violation against the rules set by the PPRC and ECSL, nothing meaningful was done by the APC or its ITGC.
Also, even though Sierra Leoneans home and abroad have received the report on data of registered voters so far announced by ECSL with mixed feelings and mistrust, the opposition such as the APC and its ITGC Chairman Alfred Peter Conteh seemed to be complacent and have failed so far to raise questions about the data that supposed to have come from the remaining 20% of the VR centres not announced by the ECSL.
And generally the slumbering and mess taking place within the APC and its ITGC rank and file is seriously serving as a deadly whip that would continue to destroy the progress of the party for as long as it continues.
Furthermore, parliamentarians, especially APC members of parliament, are keeping a tight lip on all the revelations and allegations of corruption being unearthed by the Africanist Press, especially the recent allegations it is making against the ECSL about the procurement of the computers and other equipment being used in the voter registration process.
While a majority of the people in the country have clearly noted that the APC, Alfred Peter Conteh, as well as other opposition members and moral guarantors in the country have so far failed the nation, Forum would like leaders and elders of the APC party to know that time is not in their favour as the political climate and electioneering process is fast approaching. They all should note that it is just about 9 months more to June 2023 within which the party is expected to form an interim body or executive that should oversee its lower level elections and national delegates’ conference, as well as the election of its standard bearer that would lead the party to the upcoming elections.
