News of succession skirmishes amongst desperate incumbent Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) members, roaming everywhere with untimely campaign messages aimed succeeding President Julius Maada Bio in 2028 is unfortunate.

For a country faced with economic hardship, emerging leaders of the Grand Old Party should focus attention on addressing the economic challenges, peace, stability, national unity, democratic good governance and the likes instead of who comes after the President Bio.

Succession battle is not the answer to the problems of the day, and power struggle must be discouraged now going forward so that state governance issues can be placed at the top of every national agenda for the general good.

For all we know and stand to believe is that the social contract government signed with the people stands; and promises made by President Bio to deliver Sierra Leoneans from the grime suffering remained unanswered barely six years down the line. Thus he shouldn’t be distracted on the job as ‘time and tide wait for no man.’ So not even by his SLPP comrades, though it is the constitutional rights of aspirants to choose their choices of national leadership offices, it should not at the detriment of national interest as it is unfolding now under the watch of President Bio, as if the party’s leadership lacks the powers to contain desperate detractors. Hence SLPP partisans must restrain themselves from unnecessary early warmups considering the huge tasks at the hands of President Bio. And the nation is also anxiously waiting Bio’s unfinished assignments to be anchored logically in record time for the betterment of Sierra Leone. The president therefore needs no distraction, not anything with the tendencies of diverting his attention from delivering Sierra Leoneans’ much awaited Torma Bum rice project.

Concerns should be exerted on how these aspirants should help Bio solve the problems associated with energy and water supplies, self-food sufficiency, skyrocketing cost of living, process of goods and services including food stuffs…, open up the country for business, review unfriendly tax policies, enhance business and investment capacities of the Sierra Leonean private sector operators among host of others, rather than trying to succeed him with all these unfinished tasks at hand.  SLPP speed lane politicians vying for the leadership of their party should not be carried away because of traditional second term presidential challenges the country is always faced with. They should not see the situation as a moment of survival of the fittest, wherein everybody fights his/her own battle and ignore national development agenda.

The SLPP formed government on an avowed mantra of providing Sierra Leoneans with the needful goodies and President Bio should be chanced enough by his comrades to stay focused and deliver as promised to avoid excuses and blame shifting at the end of the day.

Knowing fully well how failed immediate past and presents leaders are good at apportioning blames on their opponents when it comes to challenges, partisan politics should be a thing of the past for now and governance of service deliveries should be the targeted focus.

No matter how long he stays in office, President Bio will one day retire. And he must be succeeded either by one of his best SLPP comrades either as a leaders or by someone more competent than him, from another political party, probably from the All People’s Congress as president.

There is no need for fight among the likes of Hon Vice President Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh Hon Alhaji Musa Tarawally, Dr Alie Kabba, Dr Kandeh Hon Kolleh Yumkela, Chief Minister, Dr David Moinina Sengeh, Professor David John Francis, Jacob Jusu Saffa et al who are busy gallivanting all over the place marketing their 2028 political ambitions. All done in furtherance to succeed Bio come 2028.

So for the ruling SLPP presidential hopefuls, it is a good move for early warming ups on the touchlines of the party’s playing ground, considering it being their individual constitutional rights. Yet, it however sends clear signals worrying signs within the GOP; that something is amiss under President Bio, that there needs urgent solution through succession plan to clean that mess off from SLPP records.

SLPP desperados downed by their internal can hardly wait for the right time to come. Their warming ups also communicate that there is indeed true democracy in their party though records from the SLPP last primaries held in Bo in December 2022 spoke of volume of flaws from within. Except if some of the president’s best placed surrogates want to further expose leadership failures within, besides they shouldn’t be on war paths. There is no need for early alarms now about succession.

President Bio has three to four years more in office, which is not an enough time for him to deliver even the much talked about ‘Feed Salone,’ having spent five years and couldn’t deliver the Torma Bum rice cultivation project in record time. The rice development project raised hopes of ending the importation of rice from South East-Asia. Sierra Leoneans still rely on imported rice. What a deceit? To that end, emerging SLPP leaders should be punctuated to slow their rolls and give a bit of respite to Bio to redirect his focus with keen attention on fixing the national economy.

These aspirants must review their 2028 political ambitions and see reasons to support President Bio achieve and deliver as promised Sierra Leoneans. Failure to stay focused the country is sets for socio and economic doom more than what was experienced during his first term.

Moreover, Dr Kabba, Dr Yumkela, Hon Alhaji Tarawally, CM, Dr Sengeh, former Foreign Minister, Prof Francis, Saffa, Kaikai and Hon V.P. Dr Jalloh should not be running around for succession as if they have been let-downs by their boss Bio and that they are required to urgently fix the problem by way of succession. As a matter of fact, they shouldn’t be in a hurry, but be focused on addressing governance challenges rather than fixing their eyes on how to succeed Bio in 2028.

Researches have it that second term presidencies have always been difficult for present and past presidents since the return of democracy in Sierra Leone in 1996.

Former President Ernest Bai Koroma came in 2007 with the APC slogan; “Come with us to a Brighter Future” which was later transformed into the “Agenda for Change”. The Agenda for Change delivered successful programmes in the first term of the Koroma presidency. It rolled multiple developmental approaches that opened up the country for business, brought in mass infrastructural initiatives; enhanced energy and improved electricity supplies to urban and rural communities across the country, and above all rebranded Sierra Leone to the world.

But sadly for the Koroma presidency, succession battled among his APC comrades distracted him from focusing on delivering the goodies during his second term, to an extent that it somehow derailed what they referred to as an ‘Agenda For Prosperity.’ These happened because most of his cabinet ministers were no longer focus on their official assignments but their personal ambitions to succeed him as president after his retirement in 2018. The late President Alhaji Dr Ahmed Tejan Kabbah encountered similar challenges during his second term. With the trending plight, President Bio must take a firmer action against would be successors roaming all over the place, by way of cautioning them that they should all swallow their 2028 ambitions and join you in working for the people as you are yet to impress Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad.