By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
At the most critical juncture of the party’s survival; some members of the All People’s Congress (APC) have been forsaking their party and fleeing to the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) like uncircumcised boys due to unprincipled selfish reasons!
But the interesting thing about all of these resignations is that most of the deserters gave “marginalization”, “tribalism”, and “regionalism” as some of the reasons why they left the APC. But the irony in those ironies is the fact that the SLPP also stands accused of “marginalization”, “tribalism”, and “regionalism” by most of its north-western supporters!
So, when one scratches the surfaces of those resignations, one realises that the cloudy reasons, given by those prodigal sons for returning home, are self-interests and some of the very reasons they claimed to have left the APC for. Apart from Alpha Kanu, there is a thread of commonality that runs through people like Robin Fallay; Victor Bockarie Foh; Moijueh Kaikai; Mohamed Ali Bah; Major Ishmael Sengu Koroma, and Oswald Hanciles. All of them are south-easterners who were given plump jobs by former President Ernest Bai Koroma, and who personified all the crimes and follies for which they are now accusing the APC of.
When Robin Fallay was the blue-eyed boy of ex-President Koroma; when Alpha Kanu was Minister of several ministries and later Presidential Adviser; when Victor Bockarie Foh was Sierra Leone’s Ambassador to China and later Vice President; when Moijueh Kaikai was Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs; when Mohamed Ali Bah was Minister of State in the Office of the Vice President.; when Major Ishmael Sengu Koroma was Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and later Deputy Minister of Energy, and when Oswald Hanciles was Presidential Adviser at State House, why didn’t they raise all those issues they are now raising in the traditional media and on social media? When they were acquiring “unexplained wealth” and their families living in clover (with the exception of Oswald Hanciles who is still living a Spartan life and the only one among the “prodigals” who doesn’t have a house in his name or even own an Okada); why didn’t they see all these ills they are now seeing in the APC? The answer is simple: they were practicing the typical African axiom of not talking while eating!
I hold the viewpoint that the true political character and principles of a man are not shown when he is in a position of comfort and privilege; but when he is in a position wherein those comforts and privileges are no longer existing. My simple question is: If the APC had won the 2018 general elections, would these “Comrades” have resigned giving those same reasons which they are now citing? Would they not be shouting atop the Freetown City Council Building (currently the tallest building in Freetown) why the APC is the best party in, and for, Sierra Leone?
It is funnily funny how most of the deserting “APC Comrades” are now recanting their previous beliefs about the APC and its leaders. Is Oswald Hanciles now telling us that he no longer believes in all what he wrote in his autobiographical sketch of former President Koroma and the APC in his “Natural Born Leader”? Will Moijueh Kaikai be honest enough to tell his compatriots that the only time in his entire life when he lived a decent and respectable life was when he was a Minister in the last APC government? When Victor Foh was taking the oath of office, as Vice President under ex-President Koroma, he noted that: “the APC does not believe in tribalism. Here is a Mendeman from Jimmi Bagbo becoming a Vice President under an APC government”. And Alpha Kanu had been the APC’s version of the Nazis’ Joseph Gobbles to the extent that he was the synonym for that party.
The painful thing about Alpha Kanu’s and Victor Foh’s defections is the lies and half-truths which they are now spewing to justify their betrayals. By trying to be more “Paopa-ian” than President Julius Maada Bio; both Kanu and Foh are now saying things which are not only frightening their newfound master but convincing him that the only thing that is consistent about them is their inconsistency! And surprisingly, “tribalism” and “regionalism” were two of the crimes which Victor Foh was persistently accusing the SLPP of throughout his over three-decade APC membership! I can’t just imagine the ill-at-ease aura that will always envelop Alpha Kanu and Victor Foh every time they are in President Bio’s presence, considering the nasty and despicable things they had said about him openly while projecting the APC’s agenda.
Let’s for the sake of “Long Bench” or “Ataya Base” argument say Alpha Kanu and Victor Foh did what they did because they had wanted to protect their “unexplained wealth” from the SLPP’s witch-hunting Commission of Inquiry (COI). But they shouldn’t have been saying most of the lies they are now spewing, which shows that they might have been some of the Fifth Columnists giving inside information to the SLPP after the APC 2018 Makeni National Delegates’ Convention. Their betrayals are not something superficial but something deeper!
My Sherbro-Limba mother has a saying that for some people, even if you pluck out your eyes for their sakes; they will still tell you that you didn’t do the plucking well enough. The bottom-line: ungratefulness and betrayal are ingrained in some people’s DNAs. No matter what you do for them; they will still show ingratitude!
Apart from those prodigal sons returning home from whence they had original came, those APC former Members of Parliament and Chairmen who have also resigned and joined the SLPP should know that they will never be trusted in their newfound political party! Anyone who changes his religion or political allegiance with the frequency with which they change their underpants, or for the flimsiest of reasons, should not be trusted. Because once a traitor will always be a traitor!
And for those who have gone Independent simply because their names were down the PR (Proportional Representation) list, they should know that a political party is like a tight-knitted family in which its members are expected to weather any storm through thick and thin. But jumping ship because of slight disagreements means that those “comrades” were only putting up facades that they believed in the party’s ideology.
But what I will advise the APC hierarchy is to gather the fragments; reconcile with those party faithful who still appear to be irreconcilable, and march with a calm will to the June 24 general elections. Majority of Sierra Leoneans want change. And that change will be brought about by the APC through the leadership of Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara!
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