Interesting well balanced article on SLPP Standard Bearer.... Published today 11/17/14 by The Voice Newspaper My biased favorite paragraph; Most south easterners have now come to the realization that Kandeh remains the best option to deliver State House. In some of my sojourns up country, the cry is “We no longer want a flag bearer but a president.” Whats yours? Read on.. SLPP STANDARD BEARERS AND STATE HOUSE BY SHEIK BAKARR KAMARA It came to pass that in 2012, Brigadier Maada Bio was elected to lead the SLPP into the elections of that year. Party faithfuls including myself were excited. One strongly held belief among SLPP partisans was that the party’s poor showing in 2007 was largely due to the fact that its standard bearer (the word flag bearer is a misnomer in this context) Solomon Berewa lacked the sheer force of personality that was necessary to provide the robust leadership required at the time. This argument carried quite some currency as the SLPP was dealing with a party in power with an infamous track record of rigging and intimidation. All said, the party needed a strongman to stand up to the ‘thuggery’ of the APC. Maada Bio seemed to fit that bill perfectly. Educated and well spoken, a robust military background even if slightly chequered, an affable personality, a youthful zest and what he does not fail to remind people of: ‘’name recognition.’’Maada was to inherit a political party that was relatively steeped in British democratic traditions and whose founding fathers were at least to the party’s youth wing proverbial ‘’turners of the other cheek’’ and infuriatingly abhorrent of violence even in the face of APC intimidation and provocation particularly in 2007. Bio had it going for him. The belief though that many held that he was the single most popular figure in the party at the time is greatly undermined though by the fact that it took a last ditch intervention by his arch enemy John Benjamin to cobble together a grand south eastern alliance to ensure victory for a south eastern candidate when it seemed to many that Osu Boie was threatening to nick the polls. In spite of the foregoing, and a few minor defections, the bulk of the party stuck with him to the end. When Koroma was eventually declared winner, Bio’s followers cried foul. As a UN elections consultant/observer at the time, I saw for myself at polling stations in Freetown many instances of irregularities at the polls (I saw NEC functionaries who many believed were APC hirelings openly influencing voters at some stations).UNWOMEN/WSR elections observers who witnessed the polls in the provinces sang from the same hymn book as their peers in Freetown. Whether these and other allegations of fraud were enough to influence the outcome of the pools did not have enough proof. Maada also did himself no favours. At a meeting with civil society activists at party HQ a few days after the polls, Bio boasted that he had incontrovertible video proof of ‘massive rigging’ which he said he will produce in the courts. As expected, APC did not give him that opportunity. In his defence, so many hurdles were put in the way of his petition bid that in the end the case never saw the light of day. A presentation of those proofs may not have changed the results but it greatly would have enhanced Bio’s reputation in the party and discredited President Koroma’s claim to the presidency. Unfortunately the proof was not forthcoming even to his supporters. Many argue that the APC clearly rigged the pools and it would have been suicidal for them to have allowed Bio to present his evidence in court. Bio on the other hand did himself no favours as he failed to show the evidence to his supporters and crucially the international community despite repeated requests. This I believe gave Koroma and the APC the moral high ground. Bio’s greatest faux pas which laid the foundation for the undoing of the party started with him shockingly striving to remain leader even after the elections. In the strangest of reasons, he insisted he needed to provide political direction for the party until the courts passes verdict on the elections petition. Many detached observers in the party and even some of Bio’s more doctrinaire supporters found it difficult to come to terms with this reasoning. The rationale behind this reaction was simple: what ‘political direction’ did Bio want to provide when the party already had an elected and legally constituted executive complete with a chairman and leader in the person of John Benjamin? Soon afterwards, Bio lost the petition but continued holding on to his offices at party HQ. Even though he lost the petition, the massive show of support that the party was able to mobilize behind him during the petition hearings could have been enough motivation for him to have worked for greater unity in the party. Soon afterwards however, his prickly supporters laid siege to party HQ and in a thinly veiled manner declared it a no go area for anti-Bio members of the party. Many respectable members of the party who had gone to visit and commiserate with fellow party members after the elections suffered humiliation and abuse at the hands of Bio’s “Pa-o-pa” supporters. The victims range from the party’s erstwhile Chairman John Benjamin, to the mother of Dr. Yumkella and other senior members of the party. This ugly trend has now become the order of the day. Allegations of drug peddling by Bio’s supporters within the precincts of the HQ only serve to show how low the party has sunk. This calculated plot by Bio’s supporters to drive every decent person who wants to freely express his/her freedoms of association, movement and speech has not been limited to Freetown. Dr. Yumkella’s supporters who recently accompanied him on an Ebola assessment mission in Kenema were threatened with violence even though they had no intention of holding a political meeting not least in the party office. This also demonstrates the level of political intolerance that is now the hallmark of the Bio bandwagon. On a deeper level, it also betrays the latent fear that is eating away at the very fabric of Bio’s waning support. This is for good reason. For the first time in his fledgling yet tumultuous political career, Bio, in Dr. Yumkella, has a real competition in his hands. Bio’s incendiary apostles should learn that their claim of him being his party’s most popular candidate is only truly demonstrated by putting that popularity to the test on a level playing field in free elections. Today, Bio’s supporters who lost the district executive elections in Kenema have ‘’kidnapped’’ the party office in that city while the legitimately elected officials have to make do with the private premises of one of their officials. By these acts, the party is slowly being strangled to death. Kenema, statistics have shown, is undoubtedly the party’s most loyal district. Since the advent of multi partyism in the mid-nineties, SLPP has won every parliamentary seat in the District save those that are being petitioned. (In Kailahun which was believed to be the most loyal, the party lost a Parliamentary seat and three local council seats.).The question that is asked by many is: How can the SLPP genuinely hope to mount a credible challenge at any national polls when one of its heartland districts remain so polarized because of the sickening intolerance of people who claim to be the ‘most popular.’ As I write this piece, reports filtering in indicate that Bio supporters have again hijacked the party’s offices in Port Loko. Although Bio continues to deny association with these myriad allegations, that he has consistently failed to rein in on his supporters greatly undermines this denial. Many say the current ugly trend perpetrated and perpetuated by his supporters fit Bio perfectly. “Bio thrives on confusion because his support is waning fast. It suits him to operate under that veil of anarchy because he knows if push comes to shove, he no longer has a chance. We gave him the opportunity once and he squandered it.” One youthful supporter told me. With all the clangers he has and continues to drop, Bio still maintains some support in the south-east. One only has to look for testament of these in the 2012 election statistics. Bio decimated the PMDC (but for which Berewa could have won in 2012) by shredding their impressive national figures in 2007 from some 250,000 votes to a bare 28,000 and depriving them of all eight of the seats they won in those polls. In comparison though to the 44% scored by Berewa in 2007 as against Maada’s less than 38% even in the face of dire times under the APC, Bio’s much vaunted support takes some beating. He still, I believe, maintains some key support in the south east which though will never be enough to win him the presidency will certainly complement KKY’s ticket. As things stand today, Bio and Yumkella are the party’s most attractive candidates and can potentially complement one another. Bio continues to hold sway over particularly the restive, youthful rank and file of the party’s heartland in the south east. It is important to put into context the nature of Bio’s support. South easterners with a lot of justification have had a bad deal under Koroma’s APC. On its rise to power, the APC embarked on “massive ethnic cleansing.” Scores of highly qualified south easterners were calculatedly sacked from their jobs and many more deprived of both local and international scholarship. They further argue that the APC has demonstrated from time to time that their party - the APC is a purely northern preserve. Proof of this is that no south easterner has ever headed the APC nor led it to any national polls. In the light of the foregoing, south easterners believe that their interest is best protected with a south easterner as their leader. For me, It is not enough to have a south easterner for standard bearer. It is important that the one we choose delivers State House. We have had Berewa and Bio and consistently both south-easterners have failed to deliver State House. It is also important to note that like the APC, the SLPP cannot afford to be tribal. Unlike the APC which was founded on an ethnic platform, the SLPP even though it now draws most of its support from the southeast was founded in the north by respected elders of that region. The party particularly under Sir Milton and President Kabbah has always carved out an inclusive government at all levels. Today, the SLPP remains the only party in Sierra Leone with a truly national spread. This is a strength which the party cannot afford to lose. While I understand fellow south easterners frustration on what obtains in the country today, I think the way forward for us is to remain a truly national party. There is nothing wrong with having a south easterner as leader, what is wrong is to elect a south easterner for that sake alone. Recent events have shown that the last man to have won elections for the SLPP is President Kabbah. Some may argue that nostalgia for the SLPP which had been out of power for decades greatly helped his cause. But definitely, President Kabbah’s national spread in the form of a south-eastern mother, a northern father and his strong western area connections were, I strongly believe, the icing on the cake. Both Maada and Kandeh have no blood lines in one another’s region of birth. But they can complement one another. Bio commands relatively strong south eastern support and Yumkella can always rely on his northern brethren.Yumkella has an eastern wife and strong southern connections (He is a product of CKC) crucially also, Yumkella commands great respect in the international community. Did I hear you say he who pays the piper calls the tune? Bio unlike Yumkella has quite some baggage to contend with. On the evidence of the above the odds are stacked against Bio.Yumkella has a bigger national spread and is a potential vote winner. His track record speaks for itself. Most south easterners have now come to the realization that Kandeh remains the best option to deliver State House. In some of my sojourns up country, the cry is “We no longer want a flag bearer but a president.” If Bio can summon some courage to rein in his supporters, put an end to paid up articles that attack his party brethren, and imbibe the values of tolerance, Yumkella and himself can start talking. Ever thought of a KKY-Bio ticket? Interesting well balanced article on SLPP Standard Bearer.... Published today 11/17/14 by The Voice Newspaper My biased favorite paragraph; Most south easterners have now come to the realization that Kandeh remains the best option to deliver State House. In some of my sojourns up country, the cry is “We no longer want a flag bearer but a president.” Whats yours? Read on.. SLPP STANDARD BEARERS AND STATE HOUSE BY SHEIK BAKARR KAMARA It came to pass that in 2012, Brigadier Maada Bio was elected to lead the SLPP into the elections of that year. Party faithfuls including myself were excited. One strongly held belief among SLPP partisans was that the party’s poor showing in 2007 was largely due to the fact that its standard bearer (the word flag bearer is a misnomer in this context) Solomon Berewa lacked the sheer force of personality that was necessary to provide the robust leadership required at the time. This argument carried quite some currency as the SLPP was dealing with a party in power with an infamous track record of rigging and intimidation. All said, the party needed a strongman to stand up to the ‘thuggery’ of the APC. Maada Bio seemed to fit that bill perfectly. Educated and well spoken, a robust military background even if slightly chequered, an affable personality, a youthful zest and what he does not fail to remind people of: ‘’name recognition.’’Maada was to inherit a political party that was relatively steeped in British democratic traditions and whose founding fathers were at least to the party’s youth wing proverbial ‘’turners of the other cheek’’ and infuriatingly abhorrent of violence even in the face of APC intimidation and provocation particularly in 2007. Bio had it going for him. The belief though that many held that he was the single most popular figure in the party at the time is greatly undermined though by the fact that it took a last ditch intervention by his arch enemy John Benjamin to cobble together a grand south eastern alliance to ensure victory for a south eastern candidate when it seemed to many that Osu Boie was threatening to nick the polls. In spite of the foregoing, and a few minor defections, the bulk of the party stuck with him to the end. When Koroma was eventually declared winner, Bio’s followers cried foul. As a UN elections consultant/observer at the time, I saw for myself at polling stations in Freetown many instances of irregularities at the polls (I saw NEC functionaries who many believed were APC hirelings openly influencing voters at some stations).UNWOMEN/WSR elections observers who witnessed the polls in the provinces sang from the same hymn book as their peers in Freetown. Whether these and other allegations of fraud were enough to influence the outcome of the pools did not have enough proof. Maada also did himself no favours. At a meeting with civil society activists at party HQ a few days after the polls, Bio boasted that he had incontrovertible video proof of ‘massive rigging’ which he said he will produce in the courts. As expected, APC did not give him that opportunity. In his defence, so many hurdles were put in the way of his petition bid that in the end the case never saw the light of day. A presentation of those proofs may not have changed the results but it greatly would have enhanced Bio’s reputation in the party and discredited President Koroma’s claim to the presidency. Unfortunately the proof was not forthcoming even to his supporters. Many argue that the APC clearly rigged the pools and it would have been suicidal for them to have allowed Bio to present his evidence in court. Bio on the other hand did himself no favours as he failed to show the evidence to his supporters and crucially the international community despite repeated requests. This I believe gave Koroma and the APC the moral high ground. Bio’s greatest faux pas which laid the foundation for the undoing of the party started with him shockingly striving to remain leader even after the elections. In the strangest of reasons, he insisted he needed to provide political direction for the party until the courts passes verdict on the elections petition. Many detached observers in the party and even some of Bio’s more doctrinaire supporters found it difficult to come to terms with this reasoning. The rationale behind this reaction was simple: what ‘political direction’ did Bio want to provide when the party already had an elected and legally constituted executive complete with a chairman and leader in the person of John Benjamin? Soon afterwards, Bio lost the petition but continued holding on to his offices at party HQ. Even though he lost the petition, the massive show of support that the party was able to mobilize behind him during the petition hearings could have been enough motivation for him to have worked for greater unity in the party. Soon afterwards however, his prickly supporters laid siege to party HQ and in a thinly veiled manner declared it a no go area for anti-Bio members of the party. Many respectable members of the party who had gone to visit and commiserate with fellow party members after the elections suffered humiliation and abuse at the hands of Bio’s “Pa-o-pa” supporters. The victims range from the party’s erstwhile Chairman John Benjamin, to the mother of Dr. Yumkella and other senior members of the party. This ugly trend has now become the order of the day. Allegations of drug peddling by Bio’s supporters within the precincts of the HQ only serve to show how low the party has sunk. This calculated plot by Bio’s supporters to drive every decent person who wants to freely express his/her freedoms of association, movement and speech has not been limited to Freetown. Dr. Yumkella’s supporters who recently accompanied him on an Ebola assessment mission in Kenema were threatened with violence even though they had no intention of holding a political meeting not least in the party office. This also demonstrates the level of political intolerance that is now the hallmark of the Bio bandwagon. On a deeper level, it also betrays the latent fear that is eating away at the very fabric of Bio’s waning support. This is for good reason. For the first time in his fledgling yet tumultuous political career, Bio, in Dr. Yumkella, has a real competition in his hands. Bio’s incendiary apostles should learn that their claim of him being his party’s most popular candidate is only truly demonstrated by putting that popularity to the test on a level playing field in free elections. Today, Bio’s supporters who lost the district executive elections in Kenema have ‘’kidnapped’’ the party office in that city while the legitimately elected officials have to make do with the private premises of one of their officials. By these acts, the party is slowly being strangled to death. Kenema, statistics have shown, is undoubtedly the party’s most loyal district. Since the advent of multi partyism in the mid-nineties, SLPP has won every parliamentary seat in the District save those that are being petitioned. (In Kailahun which was believed to be the most loyal, the party lost a Parliamentary seat and three local council seats.).The question that is asked by many is: How can the SLPP genuinely hope to mount a credible challenge at any national polls when one of its heartland districts remain so polarized because of the sickening intolerance of people who claim to be the ‘most popular.’ As I write this piece, reports filtering in indicate that Bio supporters have again hijacked the party’s offices in Port Loko. Although Bio continues to deny association with these myriad allegations, that he has consistently failed to rein in on his supporters greatly undermines this denial. Many say the current ugly trend perpetrated and perpetuated by his supporters fit Bio perfectly. “Bio thrives on confusion because his support is waning fast. It suits him to operate under that veil of anarchy because he knows if push comes to shove, he no longer has a chance. We gave him the opportunity once and he squandered it.” One youthful supporter told me. With all the clangers he has and continues to drop, Bio still maintains some support in the south-east. One only has to look for testament of these in the 2012 election statistics. Bio decimated the PMDC (but for which Berewa could have won in 2012) by shredding their impressive national figures in 2007 from some 250,000 votes to a bare 28,000 and depriving them of all eight of the seats they won in those polls. In comparison though to the 44% scored by Berewa in 2007 as against Maada’s less than 38% even in the face of dire times under the APC, Bio’s much vaunted support takes some beating. He still, I believe, maintains some key support in the south east which though will never be enough to win him the presidency will certainly complement KKY’s ticket. As things stand today, Bio and Yumkella are the party’s most attractive candidates and can potentially complement one another. Bio continues to hold sway over particularly the restive, youthful rank and file of the party’s heartland in the south east. It is important to put into context the nature of Bio’s support. South easterners with a lot of justification have had a bad deal under Koroma’s APC. On its rise to power, the APC embarked on “massive ethnic cleansing.” Scores of highly qualified south easterners were calculatedly sacked from their jobs and many more deprived of both local and international scholarship. They further argue that the APC has demonstrated from time to time that their party - the APC is a purely northern preserve. Proof of this is that no south easterner has ever headed the APC nor led it to any national polls. In the light of the foregoing, south easterners believe that their interest is best protected with a south easterner as their leader. For me, It is not enough to have a south easterner for standard bearer. It is important that the one we choose delivers State House. We have had Berewa and Bio and consistently both south-easterners have failed to deliver State House. It is also important to note that like the APC, the SLPP cannot afford to be tribal. Unlike the APC which was founded on an ethnic platform, the SLPP even though it now draws most of its support from the southeast was founded in the north by respected elders of that region. The party particularly under Sir Milton and President Kabbah has always carved out an inclusive government at all levels. Today, the SLPP remains the only party in Sierra Leone with a truly national spread. This is a strength which the party cannot afford to lose. While I understand fellow south easterners frustration on what obtains in the country today, I think the way forward for us is to remain a truly national party. There is nothing wrong with having a south easterner as leader, what is wrong is to elect a south easterner for that sake alone. Recent events have shown that the last man to have won elections for the SLPP is President Kabbah. Some may argue that nostalgia for the SLPP which had been out of power for decades greatly helped his cause. But definitely, President Kabbah’s national spread in the form of a south-eastern mother, a northern father and his strong western area connections were, I strongly believe, the icing on the cake. Both Maada and Kandeh have no blood lines in one another’s region of birth. But they can complement one another. Bio commands relatively strong south eastern support and Yumkella can always rely on his northern brethren.Yumkella has an eastern wife and strong southern connections (He is a product of CKC) crucially also, Yumkella commands great respect in the international community. Did I hear you say he who pays the piper calls the tune? Bio unlike Yumkella has quite some baggage to contend with. On the evidence of the above the odds are stacked against Bio.Yumkella has a bigger national spread and is a potential vote winner. His track record speaks for itself. Most south easterners have now come to the realization that Kandeh remains the best option to deliver State House. In some of my sojourns up country, the cry is “We no longer want a flag bearer but a president.” If Bio can summon some courage to rein in his supporters, put an end to paid up articles that attack his party brethren, and imbibe the values of tolerance, Yumkella and himself can start talking.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 22:53:22 +0000
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