The electioneering histories of the SLPP and the APC are not exactly as Dr. Kallon puts it

The origin of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and the All Peoples congress (APC) show two parties with different cultural and ideological orientations that put them at opposite polarities, culminating in their different outputs in the elections during the 1960s and the 1970s, especially those of 1967 and 1977 that, Dr. Kallon mentioned in his analysis in the Satellite Newspaper.

The SLPP started as a party of elders that embraced all and sundry because of the cultural belief that “strangers” have priority.

This belief became the slogan and motto of the party, “One country, One people,” meaning that we are all Sierra Leoneans irrespective of our differences in political, regional, tribal, religious or cultural differences.

At the time in question, both Sir Albert Margai and Sir Siaka Probyn Stevens were in the Peoples national Party (PNP) as Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively.

So when Siaka Stevens formed the APC, it was more or less to bring about a radical approach to the pre-Independence political dynamics of Sierra Leone at that time.

The APC symbol of the red sun and the colour of blood may not have been conceived accidentally but deliberately, in order to instill fear into the old men for a decisive end, especially of colonial rule.

Siaka Stevens was thus not a gradualist, like Sir Milton Margai who was a moderate. Siaka Stevens believed in violence as a means to impress his views on the citizens.

So when Dr. Kallon was making comparisons about the SLPP not losing elections, except that of 1967, the rest were lost as a result of violence perpetrated by the then ruling APC, to the point that the SLPP even gave up on one election, the one in 1973 because the APC ensured that all the contestants were returned unopposed.

A day for an election in Sierra Leone in those days was like when rebels entered a town. The APC thugs, backed by Siaka Stevens Internal Security Unit (ISU) para-Military, colloquially referred to as “I shoot you,” were all it took the APC to rain violence on their opponents to win any election.

This is not to say that there were no miscalculations by the SLPP in those days, as even now, but the bottom line then was the unleashing of violence on the people, so that only those that belonged to the APC were allowed to vote.

The real blunders of the SLPP were those made during the era of late President Ahmad Tejann Kabbah and those being made now with Julius Maada Bio being so unreasonably adamant to every attempt by various groups and individuals in the party to make peace.

The present internecine warfare in the SLPP is just a demonstration of the personal greed and egocentricity at its worst state, as indeed, Dr. Kallon rightly observed.

For SLPP to lose elections in their strongholds is enough to tell the party executives that they have no business being in those positions.

Talking politics, With Jo-Nyangu

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