In addition to these internal rifts, there are also external hands fighting to see the downfall or disarray of the party.

It seems also that the decision of the court ruling by Adrian Fitcher calling for the removal of the present APC executive and the setting up of an interim executive has thrown more fuel into the already firing and volatile situation of the party. That court ruling has so far injected more sixes and sevens in the party. While some are saying that the court ruling is at all not sagacious, others are bent on using it as a saving grace to promote their hidden agenda leading to the indaba planned by Abdulai Conteh and the Committee of Elders.

Since then, all we have been seeing are deep acrimonious gestures within the party at almost every stratum of its structures and grassroots.

Interestingly, all the daggers drawn at each other in the party are aimed at removing or demolishing the present party executive headed by former president Ernest Bai Koroma, who is the party leader and chairman, and somehow the immovable party National Secretary General, Ambassador Osman Foday Yansaneh.

While party internal wrangling like what the APC is going through are not new in the political arena and party politics, the case of the APC is a different ballgame, with so much show of rancour, anger, arguments, bad feelings and hatred flowing in the veins of the party rank and file and limbs, giving rise to so many members in and out pulling strings of one ulterior motive to the other.

The Dr Abdulai O. Conteh factor and his intentions to broker peace in the party are perceived by many people in the APC as a ploy to unseat and push aside the party leader and chairman Dr Ernest Bai Koroma and other old hands who have held the fort in the party over the last 15 to 20 years. The Committee of Elders are considered to have joined the band wagon of those dancing to the dictate of the Hon. Justice Adrian Fitcher court ruling of which decision other APC members including massive grassroots supporters perceived to be an internal affairs matter that has nothing to do with the courts.

Well, whether the intentions of Dr Abdulai O. Conteh, who tried arduously to save in court the head of an APC big gun in the person of Alfred Palo Conteh, are clothed with a peace-brokering mission as some perceived them to be, we cannot tell. However, we know that God does not judge as man judges; man looks at the outward appearance; but God looks at the heart. Hence the true intension of Dr Abdulai O. Conteh will be seen sooner or later.

On the other hand, we also cannot tell whether the reasons advanced by the APC national secretary general Ambassador Osman Foday Yansaneh for disallowing the meeting are the gospel truth. But judging from his letter dated 15^th July 2021 that he sent out in defence of accusations of him using thugs to ruthlessly block Dr Abdulai O. Conteh and the Committee of Elders in order to quell their planned meeting, it can be deduced that there is more to the matter than meet the eye. Dr Yansaneh said that there were official letters between the Abdulai Conteh group and the party executive, in which the executive pleaded with the group to defer their meeting at the party headquarters till after a grand meeting planned by the current party executive, to which Dr Abdulai O. Conteh and the Committee of Elders agreed. Thus, there was no need for them to come up with their planned meeting that day.

Although he is seen as acting the fool or the martyr, the national secretary general also stated in his letter that they refused letting the meeting be held at the party headquarters at that material time because they also had some serious security concern around arms and ammunition that could be planted in the offices to implicate and criminalise the party executive;  hence they had been trying to put in place precautionary measures to prevent any such happening at the party headquarters.

The fact of the matter is that, Dr Yansaneh has openly apologised to Dr. Abdulai O. Conteh and sent a hand of peaceful resolution of the feud involving the party executive and the Committee of Elders, which, to a large extent, demonstrates that the APC national scribe is not in sabre-ratting but on the path of jaw-jaw and getting their acts together.

Indeed, the APC as the shadow government must try all they could to refuse the plan of their detractors if they want to feature well and capture the reins of power come the 2023 national and presidential elections.

Their grassroots supporters are looking at them to show real leadership and demonstrate to the detractors and doom-wishers – within or without – that they are sailing against the wind, that their effort at destabilizing the party so as not to win the upcoming national and presidential elections would come to nought.  The party executive could stand against anything that is against their better judgment. party members must also try to go into their party convention through the right internal channels and not dance to the music of some outside forces, machinations and hidden hands. All the people of Sierra Leone want is a good, sound and progressive leadership at any given time, whether it is from the APC or the SLPP or any other party in this country. The people are tired of old wines in new bottles or bad leaders who plunge us into darkness and backwardness.

The APC could take this under advisement, that they must unite, close ranks and elect a good leader who is able to take this country from here to there in good stead. If they keep sacrificing one another and shooting themselves in the foot they would eventually crash and burn