There is widespread fear in the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) that president Julius Maada Bio is about to repeat the mistakes of his predecessors in the desperate scrambling to replace him after the end of his second term in 2028.
The president we have been informed is not a student of historical antecedents, much to the disappointment of people close to the SLPP executive who say they are seeing the makings of all the presidents before president Bio as he makes his way to the end of his second term.
Top SLPP executives have intimated FORUM that towards the end of his tenure in 1985, late president Siaka Probyn Stevens overstepped his long time Sorie Ibrahim Koroma for the little known head of the armed forces, who many said the then Inspector General of Police, James Bambay Kamara was more popular than.
It is a well-known fact that Joseph Saidu Momoh failed in his duties and didn’t perform as expected. To his discredit, his poor handling of the affairs of the state led to his eventual overthrow by Captain Valentine Strasser, Julius Maada Bio and others of the then National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). His overthrow has been blamed for the bloody 1990s.
“If Pa Sheki had listened to advice he wouldn’t have selected Momoh. The old man wanted to have someone that would guaranty that he wouldn’t be brought up for prosecution after his disastrous dictatorship that saw the deaths of way too many people to mention. However, Pa Sheki set the stage for what followed in the relationship between the president and his successors,” stated a political scientist at the University of Sierra Leone.
FORUM was informed that Siaka Stevens’ side lining of his long time vice president set the stage for the fate of vice presidents that has become the norm in presidential succession in Sierra Leone. President Bio will soon be expected to make the same decision as to his successor that could affect his legacy and the peace and unity in the SLPP.
“Towards the end of their presidential tenures Siaka Stevens, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and Ernest Bai Koroma made decisions with regards their successors that are still affecting both APC and SLPP today. Instead of choosing S. I. Koroma who had been with him during his oppressive dictatorship, Stevens handed Momoh the leadership mantle. But Momoh was unproven. He didn’t have a leadership role as the presidency he was handed. But we know that the old man wanted someone to protect him and his riches and who better than the head of the army? S. I. Koroma was old and Pa Sheki was not confident that he would have been able to guaranty that Sheki ate his stolen wealth in peace,” a ranking member of the SLPP suggested.
But political pundits have suggested that had S. I. Koroma been made president the nation would have been spared the bloodletting of the 1990s.
It must be recalled that since before 1996 Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and Dr Albert Joe Demby struggled for power in the SLPP, and together won the first democratic election in that same year. At the end of his first term, president Kabbah however dumped Joe Demby and compensated Solomon Berewa with the vice presidency for his role in the signing of the Lome Peace Accord. The first post war president chose his vice president Solomon Ekuma Berewa instead of more liked and popular partisans. Many people in the SLPP didn’t consider the highly unpopular vice president who they blamed for the executions of 24 soldiers in 1998 as the nation’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, to be able to effectively defeat the APC contender Ernest Bai Koroma in the 2007presidential race.
Koroma’s popularity was on the upswing and many SLPP executives looking at those days suggested that Kabbah organised the first stage managed transition – handing over of power from the SLPP to the APC.
“Kabbah was not looking for someone to protect his assets. He was rather looking for someone who was capable of maintaining the peace, sustain and consolidate it. He and Berewa were part of that bloody history and he found that person in Ernest Bai Koroma. We know that the two men used to meet regularly towards the end of Kabbah’s tenure. They most times weekends together and discussed significant national issues. Kabbah knew Berewa would lose the 2007 presidential election so no matter what advice he was given he stuck with Berewa to ensure regime change for someone who would continue to add values to his legacy,” an APC MP said at the nation’s law making house.
The MP narrated that while Koroma’s first term was for the record books in terms of his handling of the economy, creating jobs, ensuring electric power for the capital city Freetown and his infrastructural developments, nothing could prepare them for his second term regime.
“These guys are all the same. Towards the end of his second term Bai Koroma Koroma lost that spark that made his first term unforgettable. He started looking for a way out. He had sacked his vice president, Alhaji Samuel Sidique Sam-Sumana and wasn’t going to hand power to one of is stooges, Victor Bockarie Foh. He was too old and many people in the party didn’t think Foh was too committed to the APC despite his position,” the MP continued.
He said despite the many ranking party people that Ernest Bai Koroma could have selected to lead the APC into an unprecedented third term as a party government, the former president chose a little known technocrat Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara over the men who had canvassed the party and country hoping to replace Koroma.
“EBK chose Samura Kamara over the others because he knew Samura Kamara would not defeat Bio. We also know that Ernest Bai Koroma helped Bio quite a lot financially. They met many times unofficially and we believe that regime change was orchestrated by EBK. He wasn’t trying to protect his asset as we know he was clean; cleaner than all before him. But he did side line all the men who were more capable than Samura Kamara to allow Bio to take over,” the APC MP reposted.
The decisions of all the men before president Bio have been called regime change; the choosing of a successor that will protect your name and asset. Now that the decision is now with president Bio and he has severally threatened that he will not hand power over to anyone in the APC, who will he choose?
Is Bio set to make the same mistake as Ernest Bai Koroma whose handpicking of Samura Kamara continues to divide the APC even up to present?
Only time will tell as many have suggested that he will go the way of all those before him and not only side line his vice president but do all in his power to have someone who will protect his name and asset after his tenure.
