By Abdul Kuyateh
Since losing power to the opposition in the 2018 elections, the All Peoples Congress party has been grappling to put its axe together and bounce back to governance amidst caustic internal squabbles resulting in major litigations for fair play.
Just few months to the polls on 24th June 2023, the party, widely to be a grassroots party that has ruled the country for decades, is yet to put its house together and elect a formidable challenger to the current political dispensation.
Its current Interim leadership was created by a High Court interlocutory Ruling that is yet to be fully complied with. A major dilemma that is hunting the party is the right choice of presidential flagbearer, as it happened in 2016, when the then notorious and undemocratic “selection clause” of the defunct 1995 construction wreaked havoc to the unity of the party, which did not only contributed to its defeat in the elections, but also opened the floodgates of litigation that have paid some good dividend in the path of reforms and democratisation of the party.
Today, the grassroots, who had long been marginalised in the exercise of their right to choose their leadership, can now boast of some space in the exercising their franchise. Kudos to Alfred Peter Coteh, the young and determined reformer for bravely staking his neck to change the trend and patterns that characterised the APC as undemocratic and dictatorial.
One of the sticking issues that continue to plague the wellbeing of the party is the membership of the former Vice President, Chief Alhaji Sam Sumana. It’s bizzare, to say the least, that anyone can imagine that Chuef Sumana’s membership can be questioned by people who claim to be APCIANs. The story, from its Genesis to Revelation, was crookedly hatched and maliciously executed; and now wickedly and immorally uses against him, much to the detriment of the party.
It is no hidden secret, that Chief Sam Sumana, no matter how you hate him, no matter how you loath the party, no matter how you don’t care about democracy and the welfare of the people of this country, Chief Sam Sumana is strongest political figure to contend with in the APC.
APC, shine your eyes and do the needful; provide the former VP a fair chance to compete for the highest office in the land and give the party a new face. It’s an open secret that Chief Sam Sumana never left the APC; he was borne in the APC and his late father worked for the APC and sacrificed for its survival, even before his now accusers were borne.
The indisputable fact is that Sam was ganged against and expelled from his party and sacked from the position of elected VP, using dubious and absurd portions of the 1995 APC construction, which can be aptly described as the “satanic verses” that have now be expunged in the 2022 constitution, much to the credit of the tireless champion of change, Alfred Peter Conteh.
It is strange, incomprehensible and foolhardy for a party to find pleasure in dwindling its ranks, borne out of political hate and paroaciality of the highest order. There is no denying the fact that Chief Sam Sumana stands for peace, unity and fair play in not just the internal workings of the APC, but the country as a whole.
Any attempt to muzzle him in the presidential race is destined to come to nought and detrimental to democracy, justice and above all the winning chances of the APC; keeping him at bay does not augur well for the unity of the party.
