By Hassan Osman Kargbo
The National Publicity Secretary of the main opposition All Peoples Congress Party, (APC) Sidie Yayah Tunis, has exposed the 2018 and 2023 Presidential aspirant of the APC Dr Samura MW Kamara by stating that the then Presidential aspirant held a one-on-one meeting with President Julius Maada Bio without the attention of any executive member or whosoever in the party.
According to Mr. Tunis, nobody in the party executive was undermining Dr Samura MW Kamara because rumours are going around saying that the executive is undermining the then Presidential aspirant of APC, adding that after the 2023 multi-tie election, Dr Samura Kamara was aware of all the activities that the executive was undertaking and noted that most of the activities that they had undertaken as an executive was headed by Samura Kamara. He said during that period, they have certain decisions which was against the wished of the executive but they ended up of taking that decision for the sake of Dr Samura Kamara.
He admitted that after Dr Samura had a one-on-one meeting with President Bio without the notice of anybody at the party executive. He said Samura decided to meet with President Julius Maada Bio and later informed the executive about their meeting with the president. He said Dr Samura told them that his meeting with the president was to see how they could end the political turmoil on or before September 15 when the president would travel for the UN General Assembly in New York. He said they would hold the meeting without International mediators, and according to Mr Tunis they wouldn’t allow such negotiation with the government because that is not the right way to go.
“This is not the right way because we have concluded an election that is free and fair and our people are not happy and we need to do things accordingly. We as an executive empathized that there should be International mediators in the dialogue,” he said.
He confirmed that they put out a position paper that is calling for the disaggregated data or a re-run election, but the team led by Samura Kamara decided to ignore their position paper. He said the even advise Dr Samura Kamara to take the back seat because he contested against president Bio and president Bio is not part of the team so let Samura and Chernor Bah take the back seat, but Dr Samura Kamara insisted that he must be part of the team.
“The secretary general of the Common Wealth was about to on board a flight to Sierra Leone when she received a phone call from Dr Samura Kamara informing her that they haven’t prepare for any dialogue and the Secretary General decided to cancel her flight because of the message she received from Dr Samura Kamara,” he said.