Tut Tut, APC!
There is no doubt now that the APC are still reeling from the shock of having lost the recent Parliamentary bye election in constituency 91 of Pujehun district. It was a contest for which not winning it was not an option, let alone losing it; but that is exactly what happened a week ago last Saturday May 8.
Right up to the weekend the Party was still reeling from the shock. This took the form of a news conference which was characterized by the blame game. It was the SLPP that did this and did that; it was the same SLPP that had refused to fizzle out or die even after being thrown out of office for complacency in eleven years of misrule and corruption.
Instead they boasted that they had only lost a battle in 2007 but had not lost the war. And now for the second time in a year the same party, now led by blunt, fearless and outspoken John Benjamin had deprived them of victory in two Parliamentary bye elections in the same Pujehun district. But what was revealed in last Thursday’s news conference which was in reality a continuation of government propaganda?
The whole thing was dull and insipid and simply did not add up. Quite seriously even if I not heard the report of the National Electoral Commission or of the National Election Watch at an earlier news conference what was put across did not impress me, nor I am sure many people, APC supporters among them. Since they came into office, who has ever heard of an election in which the APC has been involved and which has been peaceful, free and violent free? Who has ever heard of an election in which they have not turned up with “innocent party supporters,†not thugs whose only objective was to watch the proceedings and at the end of the exercise return to their original homes?
I am constrained to again refer readers to the front page photographs of Awoko the scenes in Zimmi with jeep loads of innocent young people. Awoko is no supporter of the SLPP but how did the newspaper describe the angry looking young men in those photographs? “Thugs!†it thundered.
The APC leadership boasted at the news conference that similar bye elections in their strongholds passed off peacefully; but then one has to ask whether they were telling the whole truth. Were incidents of intimidation and violence not of concern to the party’s life line allies PMDC in the Parliamentary bye elections in Port Loko? What were the PMDC party’s comments following the Sanda Parliamentary bye election and yet there was its chairman Mohamed Bangura last Thursday echoing what the APC had said. It is being rumoured that the party may not field a flag bearer in 2012 and would throw its weight behind the candidature of President Ernest Bai Koroma. Could their present action not be a rehearsal of things to come?
I have repeated religiously that we all must long for the day when elections of any kind would in practice be FREE, FAIR AND WITHOUT ANY KIND OF VIOLENCE OR INTIMIDATION. Anything less only leads to chaos. The attainment of such a situation ought to be a primary objective of the Attitudinal and Behavioral Change Secretariat. However the nature of the recently concluded Paramount chieftaincy elections in many chiefdoms does not inspire optimism or confidence. Again one has to make a comparison with a similar exercise under the SLPP regime in 2007 in elections involving 73 chiefdoms. 2012 is barely 24 months away.
Folks, there is a Mende proverb which says that “Even a cockroach could distinguish a bottle containing caustic sodaâ€. A certain newspaper chief editor of no more than 50, but who looks as if he was ten years my senior, was in the habit of criticizing and sometimes insulting Vice President Sam Sumana. Then one day a letter from a member of the Eric James family appeared in his paper. The letter described the late father of the honourable Vice President and his relationship with the James family and “you keep attacking him.†The letter said no more; that was some 18 months ago; since then the name of the Vice President has not appeared in that paper. Na man go tell you?
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yankay seisay
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This theatrical speech lack any substance.Why your people keep fighting anytime the day election arrived in your backyards. Please for peace sake within yourself Mr orator tell them just to vote and you guide the boxes simple like ABC… Is it too hard to do ? or is it part of the mendeism culture. Like cowards they are alway waiting to fight. You keep on blaming the APC as a violent bla bla party but your party peacefulness is not adding up at all. You think about it .
15th May 2010