Anger over VP, First Lady – Kono ‘balance’ to SLPP

A cross section of residents of Kono District have revealed they will support the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) in the next Presidential and Parliamentary elections, saying they have been marginalized and their interests not heeded by First Lady Sia Nyama Koroma and Vice President Sam-Sumana, whom they claim caused them to vote APC.

“We have decided that there are problems in the APC and that the people for whom we decided to vote for in the present government have not regarded us as human beings but rather as unwanted trash,” said Mohamed Lebbie, a teacher in Koidu.

Currently there is a general call in Kono for all those who were SLPP but had supported the APC because of Sam-Sumana and Madam Sia Nyama to go back to their former allegiance. “We have to maintain our political allegiance because we have now realized that sometimes, friends are better off than brothers and sisters,” Mr. Lebbie maintained, in direct reference to the First Lady and the Vice President.

The call to abandon the APC started emerging following the death of Pa John Kellie, a prominent APC member and a great personality in the district. Mr. Kellie who was suffering as a result of an acute disease wanted medical help and through the advice of relatives and contributions from APC supporters in Kono, he had traveled to Freetown to meet with Sam-Sumana and Sia Koroma, only to be snubbed by the two prominent personalities.

Pa Kellie is said to have been dejected after repeated attempts to see Sumana and Sia Koroma failed.

Pa John Kellie was forced to walk long distances just to see the two politicians and at the end of the day none of them saw him or even sent drug or money to help him out.

“Both Vice President Sam-Sumana and First Lady Sia Nyama Koroma did not see Mr. John Kellie and because of his discouragement, the APC stalwart is said to have no alternative but to return home, a discouraged man and that he died on his way back to Kono, even though he needed medical treatment here in the city.

“One would want to know why a man who has traveled all the way from Kono to Freetown has to return back even though there are no medical facilities in that part of the country to heal the man?” said Sahr Komba, a teacher.

The call to ‘balance’ to the SLPP is now the popular word in the district and the name of Sia Koroma and Sam-Sumana are said to be unpopular as even a mention of them now cause people to hiss instead of applaud.

Another prominent APC stalwart in Kono, Mr. Komba Kamakuma is also said to have gone through a similar treatment when he tried to see Vice President Sam-Sumana and First Lady Koroma due to an illness but was driven off through orders from ‘above.’

A pastor in Yengema who asked not to be named said Kono people were used and fooled into supporting Sam-Sumana and Sia Nyama Koroma. “What can you expect from the daughter of Abu Aiah Koroma, a man who did not bring any development to Kono apart from setting up secret society shrines and forcefully initiating kids?” he asked rhetorically. The pastor also described what he called the miserable state of Kamara Chiefdom and Tombodu, the town where the First Lady hails from and said if one were to be informed that this is the town where the wife of the president of Sierra Leone hails from, it will be a big surprise to any development oriented person. “If you look at Tombodu town and see how the town is, you may even want to weep for the people,” he said.

The home town of Vice President Sam-Sumana has also been described as a “big disgrace” because there is no proper road to the town where the Vice president was born and bred. “This shows that these are not the types of people whom Kono should expect development from because what they fail to do in their own fatherland can never be done in other towns and chiefdoms,” said the pastor.

Tamba Mbriwa, a youth activist in Yengema said when during the elections, they were unwilling to support the APC and Sam-Sumana a lot of people in Sierra Leone thought we Konos are fools for not supporting our own brother and our sister’s husband (Ernest Koroma), but the fact is that if you see a house rejecting their own son or daughter, know that their family does not have confidence in them, because a family knows more about its own members than outsiders” said Mbriwa.

Meanwhile, a large number of former APC members in Kono have started registering as members of the SLPP. “We are just waiting for the 2012 elections to show that we in Kono are not tribalists as we will vote for anyone who has our interest and that person does not need to be our in-law or a brother who is not of any benefit to us,” said a senior elder who asked not to be named.

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