By Kabs Kanu
There were dramatic scenes in Freetown, the Sierra Leone capital, yesterday as newly-elected All People’s Congress (APC) Presidential flagbearer, Dr. Samura Kamara, made a triumphant million-man return to the city after the party’s National Delegates Convention where he was unanimously voted to carry the APC mantle in the General Elections in June.
The crowd that welcomed the APC Standard Bearer to the capital was indescribable. It could well have run into a million or so as the whole city seemingly turned out to welcome the man being predicted to win the presidential elections in June. Even APC fanatics were amazed at the mammoth size of the crowd.
Dr. Kamara, wearing a white gown and his motorcade were literally swallowed up in a sea of crowds, most of them wearing red, and hailing the APC flagbearer. Citizen journalists and party supporters filming the remarkable scene kept screaming to people to take note of the multitudes of crowds receiving the torch-bearer and sailing with him in the streets. A woman interviewed by COCORIOKO said that it was as if people had not been dying in Freetown. So gigantic was the crowd that it sent APC supporters overdrive on social media to express joy and optimism that their party stands a good chance to win the forthcoming elections.
Some people told this newspaper that they had never seen such a huge crowd welcoming a future leader in the capital and many confessed that they shed tears in naked fascination.
Even supporters of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party ( SLPP ) were visibly moved by the giant crowds pulled by the opponent’s flagbearer and many would have faced the reality that this year’s presidential elections will not be easy going for President Maada Bio, the who has all plans laid up to rig it, despite having the British, U.S, European Union ( EU ) , German ambassadors and the international community on his back to make it free and fair.
With this kind of giant-sized welcome given Dr. Samura Kamara, APC supporters are confident of victory in June and many expressed it on social media. Many of them told COCORIOKO that they were fascinated that people loved their party this much, which gave them the satisfaction that the APC was still the darlings of the grassroots of Sierra Leone.
But the SLPP Government later showed its lack to commitment to democracy by dispatching armed troops who fired teargas to disperse some of the crowds. And video strips have surfaced on social media showing graphically that the newly-elected Secretary General of the party, Lawyer Lansana Dumbuya and his driver, were arrested while driving past the Presidential Lodge at Hill Station, taken in and mercilessly beaten. Armed Police were also shown needlessly molesting jubilant APC supporters. Unconfirmed reports say that many had been arrested.
Some supporters of the APC have released videos and audios reporting the matter to the international community.
