Former Sierra Leone Ambassador to South Korea, Omrie Golley, will soon declare his candidature for the flagbearer of the All People’s Congress (APC) in Pujehun town, southern Sierra Leone, making him the latest to have shown interest in leading the APC to the 2023 Presidential Election.
Omrie Golley, who has recently been engaged in agricultural activities in four provincial regions in the country, said his reason for selecting Pujehun town for his declaration was because his grandmother (from his mother’s side) was born and bred in Pujehun District. He stated that the thrust of his campaign would be unity within the APC as “that is what the party needs now if it should win the 2023 general elections”.
According to Ambassador Golley’s Campaign Coordinator, Abdul Malik Bangura, “As Ambassador for Sierra Leone to South Korea he brought in huge investment packages to Sierra Leone one of which is the biggest and tallest building in Freetown: the new Freetown City Hall”.
Abdul Malik Bangura disclosed that the former ambassador, in the erstwhile government of Ernest Bai Koroma, brought massive help for Sierra Leone from South Korea during the Ebola outbreak. “For the first time in its history, the South Korean Government sent not only medicines but military and medical personnel to assist in the fight to eradicate Ebola”.
He continued that through Ambassador Golley’s contacts in South Korea, the Koreans built a medical clinic at Tokeh on the Peninsular; noting that the former ambassador was also able to raise “US$100,000 in cash and medical supports for mudslide victims”.
The Omrie Golley Campaign Coordinator disclosed further that the Sierra Leone former Ambassador to South Korea had “seek financial supports for the fisheries sector in Sierra Leone through grants by the Korean Government”, and that he also seek “educational scholarships for Sierra Leoneans to attend Korean universities.” He added that the new APC flagbearer hopeful had been “assisting in agricultural development throughout the country with innovative methods working with contacts from Israel and the United States of America.”
Some stalwarts and grassroots of the APC, whom The Nationalist newspaper spoke with yesterday before going to press, said that Ambassador Omrie Golley worked very hard to bring peace to Sierra Leone by going to the bush to talk to the then Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels’ hierarchy and bringing them to the peace table after years of destruction of the country.
“As the Bible says, blessed are the peacemakers! Omrie Golley fought hard for the peace we are enjoying today”, noted one former member of the APC National Advisory Council (NAC) who preferred anonymity. He continued that Ambassador Golley was “a man who truly loves his country and people. A man who suffered needlessly for his country when he was arrested and jailed for treason in 2006 and spent nearly two years in prison for nothing. The then SLPP government of the late Ahmad Tejan Kabbah couldn’t prosecute him as there was no evidence”.
Ambassador Omrie Golley is a businessman, lawyer, philanthropist and politician working and living in Sierra Leone and the United Kingdom. He is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Golley Agriculture Development Company which aims at introducing a new agricultural system in Sierra Leone based on drip irrigation technology, perfected in Israel, to enable crop production continuously throughout the year instead of seasonally.
The Golley Agriculture Development Company has constructed four agricultural centres in Port Loko City in the north-western region; Bumbuna Town in the northern region; Gelehun Town in Bo District in the southern region, and Belabu Town in Kenema City in eastern Sierra Leone. The four locations were carefully selected to serve as demonstration centres of people of the four provincial regions.