Dr. Sama Banya- It’s time to retrospect not celebrate
Last Saturday’s election victory in the Pujehun district of the SLPP over its two political rivals (APC and PMDC), should be a cause for retrospect and not celebration for any sober-minded SLPP loyalist. It therefore sounds pathetic and preposterous to read Dr. Banya’s article celebrating over what he and other SLPP fanatics referred to as an SLPP victory.
Accepted that indeed it was a victory for the party to gain one more parliamentary seat, but if any one carries an objective analysis of the results, devoid of parochialism and fanaticism, then the SLPP must be more worried about the significant inroads the APC has succeeded in gaining in what was then a no-go-area for the APC.
Let me concentrate my analysis to the Presidential election results. The reason being that the tactics of the APC is to massively improve their presidential votes in the 2012 elections in the south and east, with the conviction and indeed true, that the north, West and Kono are sure balls.
In the August 11th, 2007 Presidential elections, the APC polled a mere 1,479 votes in the entire Pujehun district, whilst the SLPP scored a whooping 26,596 votes and the PMDC scoring 23,955.
During the September 8th Run-off elections, which was a straight fight between APC’s Ernest Koroma and SLPP’s Solomon Berewa, and even though Charles Margai and his supporters vigorously campaigned the whole district for the APC, yet, Ernest Koroma could only secure a mere 2,875 votes compared to the SLPP’s 38,107.
In last weekend’s Parliamentary election in the same Pujehun district, the SLPP, PMDC and APC respectively scored 3,204, 1,740 and 1,438. The above result is indicating that the APC scored almost half of what SLPP scored. If the APC can score in only one constituency, what they scored in the whole district in the 2007 polls, one would just imagine what figure the APC might have scored if it had been an election for the whole district. Should therefore, such a scenario calls for celebration or reflection by the SLPP? I think the latter is more applicable.
The likes of Dr. Banya should also realise that all the by-elections that have so far been held and won by the SLPP in the south and east is as a result of the combine efforts of almost all the powerful big guns within the SLPP including the party’s Chairman, John Benjamin whilst the APC’s main player and master crowd puller, Ernest Koroma is yet to take the centre stage. If Ernest Koroma had personally involved in the campaign of any of those elections as he would be doing in 2012, I bet my life, the outcome would have been a more serious disaster than the SLPP can imagine.
Look at the ridiculous votes the SLPP polled in last month’s by-elections in one of the APC strongholds, the Bombali district, despite the heavy presence of all the party’s ‘’Agbagbas’’ including the so-called presidential aspirant, Alpha Timbo. If the man can’t lead the party to success in his own constituency, where he was born, what confidence will the party repose on him for a national victory?
If the likes of Dr. Sama Banya and cohorts do not change their strategies in continuously fooling party members that all is well for 2012 which might lead to complacency, the SLPP might experience the most disgraceful political defeat ever imagined. MARK MY WORDS!!!
By Mustapha Abu Kpaka, Washington DC- USAStay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!
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