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Great Mischief Makers

Great Mischief Makers

The man who came to head the British government in their time of need and who eventually exhorted them to victory after former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement at Munich, (“there will be no war in our time”) was Winston Churchill who became Prime Minister in 1940. His political career had led him to serve in a Conservative, then a Liberal and again in a Conservative government. The people who write for the African Champion and Peep must be continuously informed and educated that Siaka Stevens was first SLPP, then PNP and finally APC. Albert Margai was SLPP, then PNP and finally SLPP. John Karefa Smart was SLPP, then APC, UDP and finally UNPP. Our current head of state was PDP and is now APC. Charles Margai was SLPP, then NUP, then SLPP and now PMDC. Osman Kamara was APC, then PDP. The list is endless and so once again I must ask what is peculiar about Dr. Sama Banya having been SLPP, then APC and now SLPP? What is the big deal? What was wrong in disagreeing with Siaka Stevens over a matter of principle? So to Olu Gordon and to the staff of the African Champion I think it is you who keep fooling your readers with Sama Banya was that yesterday and this today be consistent and deal with more relevant issues. 

When I criticise the APC do I distort facts? Do I fabricate stories? The leaders and members of the party are their own worse enemies. Just fancy making a hew and dance over a statement which the We Yone newspaper in its Wednesday October 21 edition attributes to Mohamed Bangura of the PMDC but which the paper endorses to wit, that the SLPP was responsible for Sierra Leone being classified as the hungriest country in Africa even as their boss man boasting about the country’s accolade of being the champion in agriculture. Another major weakness with the APC party is that they like to play Mr. Jackal and Mr. Hyde. They’ve laid claim to all the infrastructure work currently going on, including Mr. Mayor’s false claim that the council was the one renovating the old grammar school building even as a sign board 20 feet high refers to the work as a Sababu education project. They’ve been in office for two years and yet disclaim responsibility for the current state of the nation’s food production which they blame on the SLPP. Does calling attention to such inconsistencies make me a mischief maker or was it because I continue to criticze the APC. What a party in deed.

For the record, I was never a member of the PDP. In 1991 a number of us, including the late Cyril Foray, Osman Kamara, Shekie Bangura, Ibrahim Kamara met regularly in my Wilberforce Street surgery to brainstorm on whether there were alternatives to the SLPP (then in opposition) and the ruling APC. At the same time other groups including Thaimu Bangura and Hassan Gbessey Kanu respectively were also having similar discussions.  When it became obvious that the APC was determined to hang onto power, a suggestion was made to have a united opposition  front to the APC and several meetings were held in Cyril Foray’s office up mount Aureol. The difficulty arose over the name of such a coalition and it was obvious that it would be insurmountable.

First Gbesey Kanu went back to the APC, the SLPP were having none of that. Thaimu personally invited me to a rally he was having in the compound of the old Grammar school and I was given a front seat. I was never a member of PDP; there are numerous former members around who would testify to that.

I was the first in our original group to announce that I was going back to the SLPP. Shekie, Osman, Ibrahim and others decided they would join Thaimu’s new party. I wonder where on earth the fellows at the African champion got their story that I contested for the leadership of the PDP? Still they persist with their falsehood.

A Dr. Harold Sala is quoted as saying that “Some people are so good at distorting the truth that they convince themselves….The chronic liar has made lying so much a lifestyle he has a hard time perceiving reality…” 

The apostle Paul states it even better when he warns in 1 Timothy 4 “Some people have lied so well and for so long…they’ve lost their capacity for truth.” So let it be with my detractors.

I was one of five candidates in 1996 who contested for the leadership of the SLPP including former President Tejan-Kabbah, Charles Margai and Harry Will. Tejan-Kabbah beat us all hands down and the following day I joined his Presidential campaign team. Shekie Bangura would confirm that prior to his being persuaded to contest the SLPP leadership, Tejan-Kabbah was encouraging  me to go for the position, so how could I have manipulated for him to become the party leader? I had said before that these fellows have the same trait in that they would take one or two factual events and weave them into the semblance of a true story and sell it to their readers. I challenge those liars to name a single member of my former colleagues in the APC whom I betrayed. On the contrary, our current political differences not withstanding I am on first-name terms with nearly all of them.

How sad that a newspaper which has wrtten so much about Kailahun, its bad roads, lack of agricultural input etc., could now write that Nongowa chiefdom is in Kailahun district, even where he has named the honourable Paramount chief member for Kailahun district.

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