By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
If the All People’s Congress (APC) at some point in its history was in power for over 20 years uninterruptedly, if the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa has been in power since April 1994, and if the People’s Action Party (PAP) in Singapore has been in power since 1959; then nothing can stop the APC from being in opposition for donkey’s years if it fails to do a comprehensive and sincere overhaul of its current leadership.
I’m still finding it very hard to comprehend why the current APC leadership is finding it difficult to apologise to its membership and sympathizers for its failure to steer the party robustly in moments when it matters most. I find it insultingly insulting for the current APC leadership to be constantly finding scapegoats for its dismal failure in providing the required thrust and thirst for political power since 2023 to date.
And I find it tragically comical for the current APC leadership to think that the APC, as a political entity, is their personal property, therefore they should lord over it until they die! But let’s, for the mischievous sake of argument, say the APC is actually their (the old guards) property; is it not time for them to start writing their Will (what the Americans will call Last Testament) to indicate who and whom they intend to bequeath their “property” to?
I think a little digression might help here with the Singaporean experience. By 1984, the old guards of the governing People’s Action Party (PAP), which had been in power since the 1959 general election when Lee Kuan Yew became Singapore’s first Prime Minister, decided to willingly slacken their grip on the PAP because of aging leadership. And because of that realistic and honest rejuvenation of that party’s structures and leadership; the PAP is still in power today—winning successive elections successively (making it one of the longest ruling democratically-elected political parties in the world!)
And coming back to the APC; it must undertake comprehensive and honest reforms now or faces the seemingly prospects of being in opposition for a very long time. What the APC needs, at present, is a fresh and untainted leadership. A leadership that will not be prone to blackmail and government-induced court cases, or one that will not be infested with sell-outs and fifth columnists. A leadership that will be ready to take on the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) streets by streets, roads by roads, villages by villages, towns by towns, and cities by cities. In disrobed language: The APC needs a leadership that has balls and guts coupled with sincerity of purpose!
Added to that, the APC needs to address its membership issues with honesty and open-mindedness. And it also needs to take a genuine and careful look at what seems to be a deliberate Bombali-Karene-zation (in my One Dropian coinage) of its Presidential Candidates (Eddie Turay in 1996 from Bombali, Ernest Bai Koroma in 2007 and 2012 from Bombali, and Dr Samura Kamara in 2018 and 2023 from Bombali-Karene. If the APC is really serious about wrestling political power from the SLPP, then its 2028 Presidential Candidate must come from other parts of the country other than those two districts. As it stands now, the party appears to have been intentionally downgraded to a Bombali-Karene-Kamakwei entity! Its leadership, definitely, has to have a national outlook going forward.).
And what I also find disgustingly disgusting is the anti-intellectualism which appears to be in vogue in the APC. Accepted that the APC is a “grassroots party” heavily tailored with socialist threads; but the Grassroots-ness (another One Dropian dropped word) should not be seen in the running of the party or an eventual APC government. Even in churches, where everyone is supposed to be equal in the eyes of the Almighty God, there is always roles-play. The congregations are different from the Choristers who are different from the Ushers who are different from the Offerings Collectors who are different from the Pastors who are different from the Elders. So, my point is: A kindergarten school is not expected to be administered by kindergartens! But the sad reality about the APC is the fact that every idiotic Sorie, Tamba, Munda, or Ayodele thinks s/he is a “stakeholder”, so their idiocies should always override intellectualism or common sense in the running of the party’s affairs!
And why should some APCians think that mammy-cussing should be the centerpiece of political discourse within and outside the party? If leadership is determined or attained by mammy-cuss; then most of Sierra Leone’s Heads of State and the bulk of its Ministers and Diplomats would have come from Kroo Bay, Mabella, “Long Step”, or Kanikay! What is painfully painful are the disgusting accusations and counter-accusations that most of the APC old guards have their own armies of Mammy-Cussers (Is this another One Dropian dropped word?) who cuss between, and among, themselves in reciprocal camaraderie!
Those who might not like the home truths, above, should take them as home truths from a home boy! I like saying things that must be said but which have never been said, on camera, simply because those who should have said them are afraid to say them because of vested interests or factionalism. The fact is: it seems the current APC leadership is not fit for purpose, so it should give way to another generation of leaders with fresh ideas and strategies aimed at winning general elections. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 that, “To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die….” (King James Version) So, the APC old guards need to know when to step aside before being pushed over the cliff! They need to borrow a page from Singapore’s People’s Action Party (PAP) which, in 1984, offloaded its aging leadership to make way for a younger generation of fresh thinkers and strategists who are steering that country’s ship of state today.
But the road to leadership overhaul of the APC must begin with honest intra-party introspections. It must not be gate-kept by uncouthness as the centerpiece for discourse. The party’s rank and file should stop the political denials and escapisms and confront the current political realities in Sierra Leone. There should be genuine attempts at reconciliations, decency, and courteousness in the internal discourses aimed at comprehensive reforms within the APC. And there should be the thirst and hunger for political power going to 2028!
Anything short of the above will bring the APC back to full circle. The party must reform itself now or faces the prospects of being in opposition for donkey’s years! The would-be reforms should not be only aimed at the soul of the APC but the total redemption of Sierra Leone.
It is on that note that I will end today’s One Dropian dropping with a quote from Achebe’s book, “There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra”, which says: “Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.” Now is the time for the old guards in the APC to recognize and embrace the task of handing over the baton of leadership to a younger generation of thinkers and strategists!
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