The ruling All People’s Congress ( APC ) suffered a massive blow and shock on Saturday when Independent candidate Ibrahim Kamara won the Ward 139 Bye Election in Constituency 42 in the Samu Chiefdom with 881 votes beating Mohamed Kanu of APC (871 votes) and Alusine Mansaray of ADP 27 votes.
Since the results were announced, many APC supporters have been expressing their disappointment at the result in the social media.They believe that if anything, the APC should not losing elections in its stronghold on the eve of crucial presidential , legislative and council elections. Many APC fans are blaming the party heavyweights aspiring for clout and power in the Kambia District like Messrs Alimamy Pepito Koroma and Sam Sesay. Others are blaming the party vanguard in Freetown whom they accuse of living in their own world and not reading the signs of the times.
COCORIOKO does not believe that one sparrow makes a summer and that one defeat in the APC stronghold will translate to defeat next year. But we are publishing some of the views of stalwarts so that the Powers-That-Be would not become complacent or underrate the opponents or forget the brilliant strategies that give the party victory in elections.
However, not all opposition supporters are counting the APC Samu relapse as a victory.
READ THE VIEWS OF APC AND SLPP SUPPORTERS BELOW :
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ELDERS OF APC PARTY PLEASE PAY ATTENTION… THE LEVEL OF DISRESPECT AND NEGLECT OF THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE WILL LAND THE PARTY INTO EMBARRASSING 2018 ELECTIONS.
The elders of the APC do not seem to be listening or better still, pay attention to the prevailing circumstances and trends. The *kambia Samu bye election* won by the Independent Candidate, is a wake up call for the party to think twice if they are really paying attention. The 2018 election, is a crucial election that is relatively different from 2007 or even 2012 elections, when the focus of the party was directed towards a single person who was EBK.
ANY PARTY THAT DEPENDS ON TRADITIONAL BELIEFS AS AGAINST THE CHANGING TRENDS OF AN EVOLVING WORLD WILL END UP FAILING ULTIMATELY AND WOEFULLY.
The truth that should be told is that, the party still thinks they can take the people for granted. They want to allow failed politicians to use their unpopularity as against the popularity of the party. Parliamentarians whose hand-work have left the party in a disastrous situation, are the same parliamentarians the party is bent on promoting. Their disastrous parliamentary stewardship is so appalling that, they cannot bring any victory to the party at this critical moment.
I wish to emphatically state that, *the 2018 election Will definitely be a battle for parliamentary seats rather than the presidency.* The parliamentary elections will engulf and overshadow the the Presidential elections completely. The APC should pay *keen attention to the Parliamentary elections and strive as best as possible to grab as much seats as possible.*
The people’s genuine advice to the party is that, the party *must* not give symbols to politicians whose touch with the people are far fetched. We urge the party to give symbols to candidates that are chosen by the people. Any attempt to force symbol bearers of the party on the people as against their wish, will produce a counter productive result.
The reality is, We may win the Presidential position but may loose major parliamentary seats. The APC government will not be able to function effectively if they fail to acquire the requisite parliamentary seats in an election. This situation will force even the democratically APC elected President to resign coz He/She will not be able to rule effectively and efficiently.
All the president’s men/.Shall we tell the president?
Evening edition !
Pay attention !
The issue of an independent candidate allegedly put up and sponsored by a disgruntled political opponent of a major party demands urgent analysis of all the president’s Men especially the front liners .
The 62% turnout systematic of apathy for a third time in our backyard demands urgent immediate national attention .
Whilst all or most of the presidents Men are either jockeying for power or aligning themselves to power camps the ground is left unattended.
What ever they had been telling president Koroma it’s is showing in these results that our people are disgruntled and apathy is settling in at the eve of a major transition of power.
The fact that an independent candidate took our camp, aided by the new comer ADP who is gradually eroding and chipping our foundation is worth our attention.
The cry of the die hard grassroots APC supporters out there is Loud and clear .Life is hard out there.
They are beginning to tell us at the pols. “APC c ba kie ram mu oh c ka ram mu ka kuma ” is beginning to show on the reverse. It’s also happened in Makeni. We scrapped through. Yet we have political Maradonas on the ground .
I walk the streets of Freetown and the lowlands of the society people are crying Times are tough. So is Belgium, Swiezy, Bay City and the ghettos.
We need an urgent national empowerment plan activated asap to make people feel the good side of life .
Prices are soaring every other day too few purchasing power. You don’t allow “laissez Faire” on goods at the eve of major elections in governance.
The excuses are running out .Only one man will eventually emerge as flag bearer with the FULL endorsement of My president.
Why don’t we all help him to make life easier for the poor man out there without whom you would never have been an aspirant!
This might be the right time for the famous media announcement.
“IT HAS PLEASED HIS EXCELLENCY ”
Rev Dr Momodu Conteh
The Battle of the Titans in Kychom
By Dr Columba Blango
The results of yesterday’s local council election in Kychom saw the APC lose an election in the North for the first time in nine years. The election was a battle of the titans for supremacy at several levels and it also answered several questions. The Independent candidate, Ibrahim Kamara, won the bye-election in ward 139, Constituency 42 in the Samu Chiefdom, the birth place of Alhaji Dr. Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella. The people of Samu rejected SLPP due to the continuous disrespect shown to their favorite son and they opted for an independent candidacy date. As a man of the people, KKY respected his people’s decision.
The APC threw everything at this election including their titans; two APC presidential aspirants Alimamy Petito Koroma and Dr. Sam Sesay; the APC Secretary General, Osman Yansanneh; the Chief of Staff to the President; and the interloper Robin Falley who is the deputy Secretary General of the APC and parliamentarian for Kailahun who was permanently camped in Kychom for one week. In fact, it is alleged that Alimamy Petito Koroma appointed himself as one of the polling agents in Balansera. The APC team was also backed by a full contingent of police, 20 vehicles, and lots of cash.
This is the first defeat of APC in any election, at any level, in the Northern province in nine and half years. Ibrahim Kamara won with 881 votes, Mr. Mohammed Kanu of APC had 871 votes and Mr. Alusine Mansaray of ADP had 27 votes. The Paoparistas have downplayed the victory by saying the Independent candidate only received about 50% of the votes. In fact, that is exactly our reason for supporting a new vision and the candidacy of any one with national appeal i.e. one who can score well across the country and does not need a “straight-line” 80% from one ethno-regional location.
This victory over APC and ADP is important for many other reasons too. In one move KKY may have answered all his harshest critics. Yes, he has a base in the North and in his chiefdom. Yes, he has done what his brother Foday could not do in 20 years. Yes, he knows local politics or he is a fast learner. He has also proven that beyond academic credentials, he is cunning/tactical enough to defeat APCs best operators. Yes, he also beat Alpha Timbo two-to-one in February this year in their delegate contest. As some of us who know KKY since school days at CKC have warned, never under-estimate this man.
Finally, KKY has answered the nymphs JJ Blood and Prince Harding. Indeed, KKY was not at the press conference on Wednesday because he went to all the villages to mobilize his people against APC for this great victory. Low minds like JJ prefer subterfuge and fake popularity to win contests, we In KKYM we win by superior intellect and strategic planning.
Leg We dae go nor mor.
BY
ABDEL AZIZ BOCKARIE BAWOH
Since joining the Sierra Leone Peoples’ Party, Dr Kandeh Kolleh Yumkellah has been at the right place, at the wrong time, making the wrong headlines not commensurate to his virtues. Sandwiched by frustrated revenge and attention seekers, Dr Kandeh Kolleh Yumkellah is gradually rendering himself surplus to requirement in SLPP, a party that initially had tremendous respect for him and his family.
Does Dr Kandeh Kolleh need to tell the SLPP or Sierra Leoneans that he is among Sierra Leoneans that have had very rewarding jobs within and without Sierra Leone? No! Even before expressing political interest, a crop of SLPP stakeholders, including the erstwhile chairman and leader penned KKY’s name among those individuals, they thought could be of the greatest help to the party, when the party needed the moral and financial support to bounce back after 2007 demoralization at the polls, culminating from the neglect and treachery the party endured with the leadership of Tejan Kabba.
However, since brought to the political limelight, KKY now lends credence to the fact that academic maturity is quite different from moral maturity (common sense) and for political leadership, moral maturity supersedes academic maturity. KKY lacks the common sense to understand body language, to extract message from silence, communicating right message to win critical minds and to behave within expected norms that could earn unexpected advantage. By being what KKY has presently turned himself into, KKY is just running against himself and making no meaning to himself and other people.
Dr Kandeh Kolleh did not need to pay Le 50,000,000 to a single Timbo supporter in Bombali, as hospital bills for a hospitalized child or abandon a bye election in Tonkolili to woo Timbo’s supporters $ 1,500 each in a simple northern caucus elections or bribe a supposed SLPP candidate in Kychom to run as independent candidate, in order to scent himself in the SLPP fight. Most of his behaviors are costing him more than adding any virtues to him. The people of SLPP and the country needed KKY’s character more than his academic or career achievement to convince them.
As long as Kurt Waldheim of Austria and Javier Perez de Cuellarof Peru both former United Nation Secretary Generals, failed to provide the requisite political leadership for their respective countries, the SLPP or Sierra Leone needs more than KKY’s public oratory on the renewable energy campaign to convince them that he can save this ailing economy of ours.
Before becoming a UN Secretary General, Mr. Waldheim served Austria in different capacities. Joining the Austrian diplomatic service in 1945, Mr. Waldheim served as First Secretary of the Legation in Paris (1948-1951), headed the personnel department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Vienna (1951 to 1955) was appointed Permanent Observer for Austria to the United Nations (1955) and later that year became head of the Austrian Mission. Mr. Waldheim represented Austria in Canada (1956-1960) and was head of the Political Department (1960-1962) in the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, subsequently becoming Director-General for Political Affairs until June 1964. Mr. Waldheim was Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations (1964-1968) and was Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Austria (1968-1970).
Javier Perez de Cuellar assumed office as Secretary-General of the United Nations on 1 January 1982. On 10 October 1986, he was appointed for a second term of office, which began on 1 January 1987.
Mr. Perez de Cuellar was born in Lima, Peru, on 19 January 1920. He is a lawyer and a career diplomat, now retired. Like Mr. Waldheim, Perez served his country in many enviable positions locally and at the international scene and received a lot of international decorations. Mr. Perez de Cuellar was Ambassador of Peru to Switzerland, the Soviet Union, Poland and Venezuela.
On 27 February 1979, he was appointed as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs. From April 1981, while still holding this post, he acted as the Secretary-General’s Personal Representative on the situation relating to Afghanistan. In that capacity, he visited Pakistan and Afghanistan in April and August of that year in order to continue the negotiations initiated by the Secretary-General some months earlier.
Mr. Perez de Cuellar received doctorate degrees honoris causa from the following universities: the University of Nice; the Jagiellonian University at Cracow; Charles University at Prague; the University of Sofia; the University of San Marcos at Lima; the Free University at Brussels; Carleton University at Ottawa, Canada; the University of Paris (Sorbonne); the University of Visva-Bharati in West Bengal, India; the University of Michigan; the University of Osnabruck in the Federal Republic of Germany; the Coimbra University at Coimbra, Portugal; the Mongolian State University at Ulan Bator; the Humboldt University of Berlin; the Moscow State University; the University of Malta in Valleta; the Leyden University in the Netherlands; La Salle University in Philadelphia; Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts; the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland; and Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.
In the course of his career, Mr. Perez de Cuellar was decorated by some 25 countries.
However, both Mr. Waldhiem and de Cuellar could not translate their successful UN spell to political leadership in their respective countries and were both rejected as presidents of their respective countries, despite their fine CVs, which confirms that running a country is by far a more complex issue than the United Nations.
With such precedence and owing to the fact that Dr. Kandeh Kolleh Yumkellah, unlike Waldheim and de Cuellar, have not had the local administrative experience, needs to convince his political party and the country more than the arrogance and pomposity with which he carries himself attracting unnecessary headlines.
After bribing the SLPP candidate, to run as independent candidate, in Kychom, what political goal does KKY think he scored? Nothing but telling the whole world that if elected as SLPP flag bearer, KKY will go head to head, with a failed APC regime, in his own backyard. Before KKY joined SLPP, the late Tejan Kabba made the whole of Kambia a no-go area for APC. even in the 2012 elections when the election rigging was at its utmost, Kambia still had an SLPP councilor. What new advantage is the KKY movement celebrating in Kychom?
Julius Maada Bio Joined SLPP when the PMDC effect on SLPP was on the high. In the elections of 2007, the entire South was almost going PMDC and APC unprecedentedly. However, in the local council elections, Bio led the campaign that revived SLPP in those areas and by 2012, PMDC in the entire South was dead.
Can KKY compare the Sewegbema bye election manned by JOB to his, in Kychom? APC 49.0 Vs KKY 49.5% in Dr. Kandeh Kolleh Yumkellah’s Kychom is a regrettable result that could be celebrated by only low minds.
I will not celebrate such result anywhere in the entire Bonthe district. If Julius Maada Bio cannot beat APC and give them a bloody nose in Bonthe why should I think he can deliver the country?
Believe it or leave it Dr Kandeh Kolleh Yumkellah is making headlines for all the bad reasons because of the company of individuals around him.
© The Field Marshall of Benghazi Unit
