BY: JOSEPH A. KAMANDA
As the wise saying goes; No matter how well you can dance, you must know when to leave the stage. After twice leading the All People’s Congress as presidential candidate in 2018 and 2023 without bringing the party victory, Dr Samura Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara must leave now and allow the APC party to move on with progress.
It is against this backdrop that APC democrats and reformists have recently registered concerns about attempts by certain members of their party who are trying to consolidate their grip on the APC leadership. Continuing with a failed leadership even though they cannot win elections is what the entire APC membership is tired of and disgusted and fed up with.
The once formidable firebrand opposition party under previous regimes and leaders has in the last ten years under the leadership of Dr Samura Kamara transformed itself into a bunch of walking dead and a pack of retrogressive politicians. That is why many say the champagne leadership of Dr Samura Kamara is no longer needed in the APC. Change is all we are asking for going forward, said one of the reformers.
Meanwhile an official approval of the failures of the current APC leadership of Dr Samura Kamara was recently confirmed in a voice note shared on social media by the APC deputy national publicity secretary, Mohamed Kamara. Fondly called Pope, Kamara said his party is less progressive under the current leadership of the expired Samura Kamara executive. So, for transformative national development aspirations, party progress, peace and stability, the APC must reform now and urge weak leaders like Samura Kamara to retire to the parking lot.
This, they said, can give way to the integration of new ideas in the APC party. Other reasons projected by the reformers are that the expired Samura Kamara executive is not democratic, it lacks transparency, accountability and consensus for which they said the APC could not get along with him for another five-year term. They explained that proceeds from all APC diaspora chapters across the world have never been made known to the membership of the party. Samura Kamara went to the United States and the United Kingdom and Ireland where these chapters allegedly made huge financial and logistical contributions to the party for the June 24 electioneering period, which were never accounted for by expired executive. Part of concerned raised is the lack of consensus from the Samura Kamara leadership; he is being blamed by APC members for regularly meeting with the governing Sierra Leone People’s Party and president Julius Bio without the consent of the entire membership of the APC.
The reformers, popularly known as “The real sons and daughters of the APC” have called for redemption of their forefathers’ party from the claws of failed politicians who are trying to tighten their grips on the people’s power in the APC party, which they charged is impossible saying that power must change hands in the APC this time around through democratic means.
The expired executive appeared deceived and highly disappointed at the outcome of the Tripartite Committee recommendations, which didn’t talk about a rerun of the June 24 polls. When one considers the length of the electoral process period as announced by the Chief Electoral Commissioner of the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone, Mohamed K. Konneh, despite their disappointments certain members of the borrowed time APC executive are still roaming all over the place pushing for recognition and seeking relevance at different international systems quarters. The intent of the expired APC executive is aimed at continuing with their illegal hold on power in the party and the leadership, even though they hardly win elections, said one of the reformers.
They said that there is no need for the APC as one of the biggest political entities in the sub-region to be encouraging illegalities within its structures. According to them what is clearly known by members across the world is that the tenure of the expired executive elapsed long ago and Samura Kamara and his team should have stepped aside by now. But they were hiding under the tripartite canopy waiting for the outcome of the political dialogue process. The tripartite talks are done and dusted without options for a rerun, the reformers observed. They have urged the APC party to prepare for a national delegates’ conference and elect new sets of leaders, instead of diverting partisans’ attentions from the real issues preventing electoral justice. The review process recommendations they say are not new, as most of them are already in the law books of the country, adding that there is no need for the APC to engage in a ploy of time management for certain weak leaders to re-emerge for 2028. They maintained that the people are tired of having selected and imposed leaders on them.
This is the more reason the reformers are urging the National Advisory Committee – NAC, the highest decision making body in the APC, to take serious actions with strong penalties against any such defaulters and ensure that democracy is practiced in the party to its fullest, to effect the desired change everyone in the APC duly deserves. They hold the view that Dr Samura Kamara should be encouraged to focus on freeing his neck from the hooks of the Bio led regime’s court cases rather than always trying to stifle the progress of the APC.
This, the pushers of the change factor continued, will help in a better way to position the APC for transformative state governance, as the honeymoon period for champagne leadership in the APC is over. They added that the party does not deserve a weak leader like Dr Samura Kamara, but instead needs a strong, results oriented partisan that is willing and ready to lead the APC party from the front not as a backroom politician who is always waiting for the intervention of the international community.
It is an open secret that since 2018 to date Dr Samura Kamara and his failed executive have been hiding under the veil of diplomacy and the international community’s protection, which ended up deceiving him, them, APC members and their supporters, due to the duplicities of the very hypocritical international community and development partners’ double standards. International development partners in any case are always like that; when at a certain peak they tend to be with the people, while supporting their host as in the conduct of the United States Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Bryan David Hunt.
As for the reformers, the trending democratic dictatorship rule in Africa and Sierra Leone in particular does not need the likes of Samura Kamara to serve as a leader of an opposition party. They therefore called on emerging APC leaders to rise to the occasion and ensure that they advocate for the leadership change that all and sundry want for Sierra Leone and the APC in general.
