Reliable sources from the National Secretariat of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party SLPP have intimated this medium that good number of members of the National Executive Council of the party are not in any way happy with President Julius Maada Bio for positioning himself at the council which he has never been a member before.
NEC members remain unhappy with the president for his forceful imposition on them and to sit at the council, where they believe President Bio will influence so many decisions in the party.
President Bio’s membership of NEC emerged owning from the fact that he wants to consolidate the body to extend his term for the flag bearer position and the presidency.
A chance he had exhausted for three consecutive times now, and if granted another space in the SLPP for 2023 then it will be his fourth term, then he is undemocratically holding the SLPP flag bearer post for another term, which is not of the best interests of most members of the council.
On the other hand internal critics within the SLPP are of the views that the chances of President Bio was brought to an end in 2018, which marked his final candidacy vying for the flag bearer position of the SLPP.
This is said to have raised serious concerns from among members of NEC who believe the membership of the president will compromise so many issues that are directly connected with critical decisions making in the party, which is not going down well with so many party stalwarts.
Gauging modes of party members and supporters around town and the country as a whole, at Wallace Johnson Street National Secretariat a strong SLPP supporter who preferred to be identified as a true follower and supporter of JMB has this to say; “We are really surprised and shocked at his imposition on NEC because he has never been a member of that body of the SLPP party. We hope it won’t affect other organs within the party.”
He said NEC is the highest decision making body in the SLPP that has always maintained its credible, adding that he believe it will not be reduced to a mere surrogate level where in it will be dictated to hence forth to the end of term of president Bio and the SLPP.
At the SLPP regional office on Fenton Road in Bo, Sulaiman Vamunyah Kallon said; “President Bio as by the laws of the party and the original dictates of the SLPP constitution, he should step aside by the end of his first term because he is no longer qualify to run for the position of presidential candidacy of the SLPP, having ran for it in 2012 and 2018, provided the laws of the party are not relaxed in his favour.
So by mere principle he should not and we expect him to abide by the true principles of democracy which the SLPP believes in than any other forms of government.”
Similarly so in the eastern town of Kenema, there is completely mixed feelings about who takes over from the president come 2023, as party members and supporters believe they can always cross that bridge when once they approach it.
Kalilu Fomba Samai whom this reporter spoke to on Blama Road said; “except if there is anything the party wants to review but the President still has the power to continue in office until 2028 when his second term of office shall have completely come to an end.”
What seems to be clear is that the SLPP is at the moment reviewing its party constitution to probably make provisions for President Bio to vie for another term for the flag bearer position of the SLPP and also enables him to sit at the party’s NEC decision making meetings. A job the new Attorney General and Minister of Justice has already taken his payback reward from president Bio.
A policy he spent ten years and more campaigning against former President Koroma and the All People’s Congress for being dictatorial. And all now wonder as to why President Bio keeps positioning himself to be fit for another term, to lead the SLPP to the 2023 presidential elections.
Why then he has been criticizing the last APC administration and former President Koroma, whiles he was in opposition and now fails to practice what he promised?
Outside ruling party quarters, Alvin Walters at Regent in the Mountain Rural district said; “We are waiting to see, you know Sierra Leone is a country of all forms of possibilities, as one does not just rule out the third coming of President Bio for the SLPP flag bearer position as long as his party stands the chance of making it at presidential elections.” So let’s wait and see.
Thus far, the SLPP and president Bio’s chances are so slim to make a comeback in 2023 considering massive leadership failures to minimize economic hardship and the suffering of the people, amidst gross human rights abuses and violations, indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians in closed to three years now, imposing challenges to peace, stability, democratic state governance and judicial independence, all of which he campaigned against and promised to turn around.
