By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Second things second. My late Temne-Temne father, Sorie Ibrahim Sankoh, was sent to the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) for three years and later to the former Czechoslovakia for a year by the All People’s Congress (APC) in the early 1980s to study Trade Unionism. As at the time of his death, about nine years ago at the age of 68, he was still an active APC operative along the Brima Lane-Portee (Old Road) axis.
Also, my Sherbro-Limba mother and my Kono-Krio wife have been APC all their lives (My two Temne-Kono teenage children have already shown great promise of being undiluted APCians.). And from 1996 unto 2023, I have voted for the APC in all general elections.
So, unlike the political cross-pollinators who are now putting up the pretentions of being more Catholic than the Pope; methinks I have the political bragging right to comment on APC affairs with the swagger of a home boy speaking out some home truths truthfully!
Now, let me come to the crux of today’s One Dropian dropping. As I see it, most of the Flagbearer aspirants who have been implicitly insinuating that without them the APC, as a political party, must be doomed appear to be those who have no practicable policies for both the party and nation. They are using their once-upon-a-time self-importance to dress up their lack of credibility or political directionlessness! They seem to be the ones who are sowing seeds of division within the APC so much so that the word “unity” now appears to be double Dutch to the party’s “grassroots” base.
And there is that set of people who thinks that the leadership of the party must always come from their district if not the APC should be doomed—or they will strive to create the doom by sabotaging the party’s electoral chances as it was done in 2018 and 2023. Why should some “Comrades” think that the leadership of the APC must always come from their district? Why should some “Comrades” think that if the leadership of the APC is not led by a son or daughter from a particular district they should cloudily fling around threats of throwing spanners in the party’s wheels? I think it is high time the APC, as a political party, started flinging back these blackmailing tactics at the faces of those Flagbearer aspirants who want to hold the party to ransom.
And one of the insulting talks from some Flagbearer aspirants is their repeated claim of “suffering for the party” without also telling their audience (s) what they benefitted from the APC when it was in power between 2007 and 2018. It is an open secret that some of those who are now talking about “suffering for the party” were as poor as church mice at the time they were either awarded the party’s symbol for parliamentary representation or got presidential appointments. Some of them were even plucked or yanked from obscurity and made prominent by the very APC they are now claiming to have treated, or treating, them unfairly!
Now let me address the seemingly spanners-throwing faction within the APC. Let’s get this clear: the party has a guiding document which is the 2022 APC Constitution. Whatever the Framers of that Constitution had in mind when they framed what they eventually framed is no longer an issue for me—or an issue for any genuine APCian for that matter. For the simple fact that that Constitution was ratified at a National Delegates’ Conference (NDC) means that whosoever regards himself or herself as a true APC supporter or stalwart ought to accept and abide by that Constitution! There is no constitution in the world that is perfectly perfect. Even some so-called holy books could be said to have some issues today when juxtaposed with the practicalities of the modern world!
So, the clamour for amending the current 2022 APC Constitution to match the political statuses of certain aspiring Flagbearers doesn’t make any sense to me for the commonsensical reason that even if it is amended today; there will still be thousands of party faithful who will still have bones to pick with a new one. That means, the APC cannot afford to be amending its Constitution every national electoral circle. The fact is: there is now an operational APC Constitution; and there will always be an APC Constitution that might be accepted by the majority but appears to have disadvantaged a handful, or a faction, of the party faithful. That is a political fact that will always be factually political!
In my One Dropian thinking: I don’t think a son has to run to a lawyer’s chamber to do a “Change of Name” each time he feels aggrieved by his father’s action (s) only for him to go back to the lawyer’s with the aim of reverting to his original surname after his anger subsides! That’s what some current Flagbearer aspirants did in the past. And that’s what they are now cloudily threatening to do post-2026 if the party’s presidential candidacy passes them by! But my late father, who could have been aptly described as an S.I. “Koromaist”, would have put it bluntly if faced with such a situation: “Nor to becos me mama sick ar go lick docta ihn a***”! Indeed. I concur to this uncompromising stance.
So, let every aspiring APC Flagbearer campaigns on his competence, his credibility, his leadership qualities, and his would-be policies for both the party and nation. They must not hide their incompetence, their corruption-ridden characters, their directionlessness, and their lack of defined policies under the seemingly district exclusivity nonsense which appears to have plagued the APC!
The APC doesn’t need a leader after the 2026 National Delegates’ Conference that would be seen as divisive. It doesn’t need a leader whose political reach cannot go beyond the district of his birth. It doesn’t need a corrupt-ridden leader whose would-be 2028 candidacy will be red meat for the Anti-Corruption Commission. And the APC doesn’t need an old wine in a rebranded bottle!
What the APC needs, at present, is a leader who is as clean as a whistle. The party needs a leader with a broad national appeal, a leader who cannot be blackmailed by the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party, and a leader who could be aptly described as new wine in a new bottle!
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