By Sayoh Kamara just from Kono District

Indications are that the Kono people are once again regrouping and putting in motion their traditional campaign machinery for a “No Sam Sumana-No APC or SLPP win in Kono District.

This call appears to have been fuelled by the “gross disappointment” from the All People’s Congress (APC) Party for ostensibly disqualifying their most popular and favoured politician in recent times for vying for the flagbearer of the party in the last National Delegates’ Convention and for also ignoring him for the post of Running Mate. Indications therefore are that Kono District is gearing up to resuscitate a radical form of the C4C Party to restore the dignity and political significance of Chief Sahr Samuel Sam-Sumana.

A random perspective survey across Koidu city and parts of Sandor, Fiama and Lei Chiefdoms show that the traditional Kono men and women are angry and feel “molested” by the APC party for the second time running. How can a political party for which we have suffered so much for so many years just be resentful of us as a people?” asked Sahr Kanjay, a youth activist in Fiama. A vibrant lady in Kombayendeh in Lei Chiefdom, Fatmata Yendeh disclosed that there are strong moves within the women’s Sande society to call on members to stand by their son for what she said was “his fight to give the Kono man and woman the dignity they so long deserved”.

According to Madam Yendeh, since Kono people are being described by puppets of the APC party leadership as “Fools” they will again prove to the entire country that they will never be fools in their choice of and support of their own son and brother. She went on to sing the newly adopted solidarity song: “Kono-modaeng na neh aaay!..Na nyong yain banu fan na nyong bia gban, mbain borkato konomoque” meaning literally, that the Kono people have seen what they did to us the last time, now we are standing solidly with each other in the spirit of our love for Kono.

Tamba Fillie, Acting Coordinating Chairman of the new C4C Party told this reporter that the Kono people don’t see any hope in any of the two major political parties- APC and SLPP and therefore they are holding on to their own political destiny through their own political party.

Besides castigating the APC party for their unfair treatment of their son, Chief Sam-Sumana and their daughter, Finda Diana Konomanyi, he described President Julius Maada Bio’s “Kono Matters to Me” campaign as “mere political gimmick and flowery rhetoric aimed at confusing the minds of our people.”

Aiah Kaifineh is charged with coordination of grassroots support for the new C4C Party, he informed about the wide outreach exercises he and his team of youths have undertaken across the district and as far as parts of Falaba District where he says, they have a significant number of Konos and Kono associates that will not trade off the interest of Kono District and its people for anything else.

He questioned how Kono can all of a sudden “matter” to President Bio, when in all of his five years tenure, his Government has not done any significant development programmes in the entire district. He challenged that the electricity the district is relatively enjoying now, was a completion of what was already existent in the district, he further recalled that in 2019 the SLPP government ordered the removal of the only generator that was providing electricity in Koidu city resulting in the wounding and arrests of several youth agitators who protested against the government’s action.

Kaifineh described the infrastructure initiatives in the district by President Bio as “cosmetic” and that its “a mere water on a duck’s back”. He maintained that since he commissioned the Koidu-Soa-Kainkordu and the Koidu-Kondewakor (Toli Chiefdom) roads over a year ago, no works of significance have been done; pointing out that, Kono now ‘matters to him’ because he feels he can continue to fool the Kono people to vote for his re-election on June 24 this year.

He declared that the Kono people have fully realized themselves and are therefore ready to invest in what they think fits their collective aspirations.

“We are determined to show now that we can no longer be taken for a ride by any of these two political parties and their surrogates. We will as of now fight for our rights to be free from our local political nazism; we will strive to rebuild our society through our own trusted sons and daughters within our realm,” Kaifineh affirmed, and therefore asserted, “we are chastising the APC party because of the neglect and disregard meted at Chief Sam-Sumana, and we are detesting the SLPP because of the blatant lies and deceptions they are already showing us; they just want our votes-Kono has never mattered to President Bio and the SLPP.”