Maada’s Divisive Agenda to Scatter Opposition Political Coalition Parties Coming Too Late Now
By Yankuba Kai-Samba (03/03/2022)
President Julius Maada Bio’s divisive politics to undermine the quiet but effective performances of the Sierra Leone coalition has come too late.
Amid the rampant waves of harassment, intimidation, and strangulations of Sierra Leone’s democracy by the corrupt SLPP regime, politicians from thirteen registered political parties came together last year to form the Coalition of Progressive Political Parties COPPP primarily to stand against President Bio’s undemocratic governance. Slowly, COPPP has solidified its position towards protecting the fragile democracy, even though the SLPP regime of President Bio’s Paopa cabal has continuously overlooked and dismissed COPPP with the wave of the hand. But now, the SLPP government has smelt the rat i.e. COPPP should not be taken for granted. The SLPP/Paopas are now trying to divide and scatter the opposition political parties that may likely support one presidential candidate against the incumbent President Bio. Panic has gripped the SLPP government as a result. (Photo: President Bio and his SLPP cabal).
As a consequence, President Bio and his Paopa Party Chairman Dr Prince Harding have recently begged Dr Kandeh Yumkella of the NGC party to return to his former SLPP party. While in Kambia on political campaigns and to inaugurate the Paramount Chiefs, President Bio and Prince Harding pleaded with relatives and senior citizens of Kambia to prevail on Dr Kandeh Yumkella to return home. My first question is why now when it is just a year to the general and presidential elections? And why now when for the first time in the political history of Sierra Leone, all the opposition parties including the main opposition APC, NGC, C4C, PMDC, Unity Party, etc are working towards fighting the 2023 election as a unit, with one presidential candidate maybe. Dr Kandeh Yumkella will be a fool to fall for this. (Photo: COPPP members united to defend democracy in Sierra Leone).
The SLLP/Paopas are aware of the history and the changes that have taken place in sub-Sahara Africa, where most of the countries like Ghana, Liberia, Guinea, Gambia, Nigeria, etc are no longer governed by old political parties or parties that took them to independence but by either a coalition of political parties or new political parties. The Gambians have recently elected the newest political party to power after the incumbent President Adama Barrow resigned from the coalition that elected him to power in 2015 and formed his own party but then went into another alliance with other parties outside of his former coalition partners in government. The SLPP/Paopas are aware of the dangers of fighting an election when your opponents are united against you alone. Thus in my view, the Paopas are asking the NGC leader to join them is a strategy to divide and disrupt any prospect of all opposition political parties presenting one presidential candidate against the incumbent President Bio.
The Paopas have deployed a similar strategy when they poached and scattered the Alliance of All Aspirants AAA during the SLPP flagbearer election campaign. The AAA was formed by all the aspirants for the SLPP presidential candidate in 2018. It is comprised of all the aspirants. Their terms of reference were derived from their concerns about the violence, thuggery, unconstitutionality that marred the flagbearer campaigns. The AAA called for a level playing field in order to forestall a post-conflict situation that could lead to disunity and breakaway, given the past experience in 2007 when complaining of cheating and mistreatment led to the aggrieved Lawyer Charles Margai resigning from SLPP and forming the PMDC party. Julius Maada Bio, now President, was invited to join the AAA. But he refused to join. Instead, his supporters accused the AAA of ganging up against their candidate because they hated him.
Members of the AAA, all have one problem, which was Julius Bio and his Paopa supporters. Alpha Timbo, Andrew Keili, Alie Kabba, Ernest Ndomahina – the ambassador to China, John Benjamin former SLPP chairman, Kandeh Yumkella, Jonathan Temgbeh, and one Mundeh Rogers. The AAA decided to hold elections to choose one candidate to face the Paopa presidential flagbearer aspirant Julius Bio. After the voting, two aspirants emerged as winners, respective winners of their regions. Engineer Andrew Keili won the southeast delegates’ votes and Dr Kandeh Yumkella won the northwest delegates. It was then left with another vote to choose between Andrew Keili and Kandeh Yumkella to be the AAA candidate against the Paopa candidate. There was a gentleman’s understanding between Andrew Keili and Dr Kandeh Yumkella that whoever wins would become the sole candidate from the AAA to stand against Maada Bio’s Paopas. The loser would automatically become the running mate.
But cracks began to appear following the election. Egoism sets in as some AAA members were unhappy with the outcome of the election or could not stomach being the losers. Meanwhile, Dr Abass Bundu wooed Alpha Timbo to join Maada Bio. He would not accept Kandeh Yumkella to take the northern crown from him. But that was what happened when Kandeh Yumkella defeated him. The Paopas lured Alpha Timbo into believing that he was in line to be a running mate to Maada Bio. I was with Andrew Keili when he received intelligence that Alpha Timbo was hobnobbing with Abass Bundu. Andrew Keili telephoned Timbo and they spoke. I was privy to the conversation as it became clear to myself, and Andrew Keili that Alpha Timbo had moved to the Maada Bio camp. The rest as they say is history. As we go to press, President Bio is trying to implement the same divisive politics to scatter the present Coalition of Progressive Political Parties COPPP, the coalition that has sent shivers down the spines of the Bio camp today. COPPP must guard themselves against the Paopas to stop their divisive agenda as the 2023 elections draw nearer.
Courtesy: Yankuba Kai-Samba, Writing from Chelmsford UK
