Had it been SLPP…

Candidly speaking, I like the way APC broke the Constituency 62 bye-election deadlock by succeeding in prevailing on the breakaway highly popular independent candidate, John Sallu Gbla to step down to prevent him from disgracing the party’s candidate, Aaron Koroma. Mr. Gbla swallowed his pride and accepted just as the party leaders swallowed their pride to talk to him.

Had it been the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), Gbla would have gone to hell; the SLPP leaders would have told him to go to hell, describing him as a political waste product, a mad man whose absence from the party means nothing. Consequently, Gbla would have remained recalcitrant till the party is disgraced.

But the APC did not permit a single man to deprive the party of a parliamentary seat. That was a vivid manifestation APCs political maturity and unity, an example which the SLPP must try to follow. The SLPP must try to be swallowing their pride to settle their palavers, instead of allowing them to degenerate to the point of destroying the party.

One good quality I have observed in the APC is that the party’s interest supersedes individual interest whereas in the SLPP, individuals tend to put their interest above that of the party. It appears the SLPPs throat is not spacious enough to swallow pride, not even the one that bears catastrophic consequence for the party.

During the 2007 elections, the SLPP could not succeed in preventing Charles Francis Margai and his followers from deserting the party to form the Peoples Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC); the consequence of Margai’s secession was dire for the SLPP. I believe pride played a major role in the Margai-SLPP divorce.

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