The political polit- drama created by president
Koroma and his clique in the ruling party, forcing the vice president to flee
for his life last Saturday, is not certainly over just yet.
The expelled vice president Sam Sumana, who is in
hiding from the president’s armed personal militia, told the BBC that he was
willing to retract his request for asylum made on Saturday to the American
embassy, if he is allowed to return safely to his home in Freetown, as well as
the reinstatement of his personal security staff.
The vice president, along with 26 of his close
protection team had been on a twenty one -day self-imposed quarantine,
following the death of one of his bodyguards from Ebola three weeks ago.
Yet, they became target practice for president
Koroma’s heavily armed snatch squad, who vandalised the home of the vice
president, disarmed his security team and took them away, in the early hours of
last Saturday.
But it seems the vice president had unwittingly
created a rod for his own back, by going into self-imposed quarantine – or as
many are now saying – self-imposed house arrest, which the president and his
cabal have now exploited to their own political advantage
The net result and impact on the country’s
political stability and democratic foundation are now being felt across the
nation and abroad, as the political drama unfolds, burying the awful news of
Ebola making a deadly comeback in Freetown and the north.
This State House engineered political circus, of
which Sam Sumana himself is beginning to be regarded as a co-choreographer –
along with the president, has sadly buried the furore caused by the Auditor
General’s report into the millions of dollars, misappropriated by officials
managing the Ebola funds.
Fourteen million dollars of funds meant for the
caring of dying Ebola patients, remains unaccounted for by president Koroma.
In the meantime, his politically engineered circus
is providing a convenient and surreptitious cover to a group of
parliamentarians, sitting in a self-serving court in parliament where they are
acting as prosecutor, judge and jury, in a showcase trial of those accused in
the report – a disgraceful perversion of the country’s criminal justice system.
Condemnation of the president and his clique in the
ruling party, which comes not in support of the vice president, but the rule of
law, has been nationwide and in the Diaspora swift.
Once again, the
governing APC party has succeeded in not just embarrassing themselves, but in
making Sierra Leone the laughing stock of the world by the thuggish way that
they have attempted to remove Vice President Sam Sumana.
The misguided caboodle
running that party seems to have forgotten that Sierra Leone is now a
democracy.
They have completely missed
the point by failing to understand that no partisan unelected member of a
political party has the right to meet in the middle of the night, arrogate for
themselves the right to drive out of office a nationally elected vice
president, and then brazenly try to manipulate the courts, Parliament, the
police, and most troublingly, our armed forces, to back that unconstitutional
move.
It’s time for all of us
to remind the APC bosses that although they may have a right to tell Sam Sumana
that he is no longer a member of their party, they do not have the
constitutional authority to “expel” him from the vice presidency of the
country, and they definitely do not have the right to send in truckloads of
soldiers in the wee hours of the morning to “change the security detail” of a
vice president that they have just expelled from their party for the most
cockamamie of implausible excuses, without telling him, and frightening his
wife and kids.
It’s time to remind APC
that it has a duty and responsibility to act as a civilized, democratic and
modern political party, and not the bad old APC of yesteryears, with all its
attendant baggage of violence, corruption, thuggery and very dark history of
throwing Bank Governors who disagreed with them off the balconies of their
homes to their death, and executing cabinet ministers who crossed them.
I am sure that Sam
Sumana quickly remembered that history and took to his heels as soon as the
soldiers and thugs disarmed his security and told him that they were only there
to give him a nice massage. Would you blame him?
My friends, what is
happening to Sam Sumana cannot be simply dismissed as just an APC internal
affair.
It stains the democratic
fabric of the nation. If good people had spoken out when Siaka Stevens was just
beginning his brutal reign, individuals like Dr. Mohamed Sorie Fornah, Ibrahim
Taqi, David Lansana, Francis Mishek Minnah and many others would not have been
subsequently executed; S.L. Bangura would not have been murdered in his home
for refusing to give Siaka Stevens a carte blanche to the treasury for his OAU
glory; the use of thugs to harass opponents would not have happened; and
governments, past and present, would have been held accountable for their
actions a long time ago.
The president, ernest
bai koroma and his APC party owe me a lot of answers to these questions: why? Why in the world did APC provoke this
very unnecessary confrontation that has badly backfired on them, and frankly
put them in a very bad light?
Why are they so allergic
to Sam Sumana that they are ready to shred the constitution in their zeal to
get rid of him? Why are they so hungry to get their hands around the political
throat of the vice president that they are contradicting themselves with
different excuses/reasons for their politically idiotic action?
And why are they
bringing the military into politics once again? These are very troubling
questions that demand honest answers because I frankly believe that our
democracy is under threat from the wanton recklessness and overarching ambition
of the caboodle that is currently running APC and the country.
The APC has broken all
bounds in injecting religion into this Sam Sumana debacle. What the hell is
going on with that party?
We are guaranteed
freedom of religion by the framers of our constitution, but nowhere in the
constitution is there a provision about religious affiliation being a
prerequisite for president, vice president or other high office.
That is why I am shocked
that APC seem to have doubled down on Sam Sumana’s religion as a reason for
expelling him from their party. This is very dangerous, completely illogical
and inexcusable, and a threat to our national security and cohesion as one
people.
That is why I am
disappointed that APC has clumsily chosen to bring the vice president’s faith
or lack thereof into the mix.
Those who crafted the bag
of lies and flimsy reasons to expel the Vice President should reflect, bow down
in shame and apologize to the nation for this toxic and incomprehensible
injection of religion into our already tense politics.
Not only Many Kono organizations,
but also the inter faith religious
organizations. have jointly released a statement expressing concern about the
way VP Sumana is being hounded, harassed and bullied, and I completely support
them in this regard; just as I would if any other ethnic group is being marginalized
in Sierra Leone.
I totally condemn ethnic
and religious bullying and I call on President Koroma to control his minions in
APC and tell them to back off and get off Sam Sumana’s back. Then he must
totally and unequivocally condemn and dissociate himself from this undemocratic
and inflammatory action of his party.
The only way that
President Koroma can put out this fire that his attack dogs have started is to
assure us that he is committed to the rule of law, and to tell his party’s cohorts
to respect the rule of law, and to stoutly condemn tribal animosity in APC or
anywhere else in Sierra Leone.
Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. The night is almost over; the light is almost here. so let us behave decently, as in the daytime; not in corruption and mismanagement, not in political immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and tribal animosity as in the dark days of the past.
The buck stops with the
President who happens to be the Chairman and Supreme Leader of the APC.
