This was how the harrowing news was reported to the public yesterday in the social media .
Head of police in Eastern #SierraLeone says that one person has been stabbed to death in an intra-party dispute within the opposition SLPP in Kenema. AIG Karrow-Kamara says the alleged assailant is a supporter of Brig (Rtd) Julius Maada Bio while the victim was supporting John Oponjo Benjamin. Both men are running to become the standard-bearer of the party in a presidential election due in 2018.
ABDUL KABIA
Fight broke out in the Eastern city of Kenema between supporters of John Oponjo Benjamin and Julius Maada Bio, which resulted to a death of a youth.
According to a close source, a committee comprising John Benjamin, Somaneh Kapen, Tondenne, Bernadette Lahai were in Kenema to look into the affairs and modalities in conducting lower level executive elections, among others, but could not agree on the membership of the committee. The meeting was then postponed to another day.
THE VICTIM
After John Benjamin had left, notorious youth called Fonnie aka Abacha a diehard Maada Bio supporter chased John Benjamin’s convoy and John Stopped his vehicle. A youth from John’s camp ran to his vehicle to know what had happened.
Fonnie aka Abacha stabbed the youth and escaped. Police was alerted the injured youth was then taken to hospital by the police. It is now confirmed dead.
By Koroma APC
Alert! Violence, thuggery and murder takes over the SLPP, four days after unity and peace accord was forged for presidential aspirants. Tension remained high in Kenema where a man believed to be an Ex-combatant stabbed a member of the opposite camp. Graphic pictures reminds us of the capabilities of these war Ex-combatant during the Civil war in Sierra Leone. SLPP sources indicate that there is a very high possibility of upcoming violence even during the SLPP convention. The SLPP is now like a powder keg…it only need a spark… More info
KANTHE KNANA
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COCORIOKO VIEWPOINT :
Our independent investigation confirmed that indeed, an SLPP man did kill another SLPP supporter in Kenema yesterday.
This merciless stabbing death of the young man, whose bloody corpse and his live photo (inset ) are shown above, is a confirmation of the fears of the Sierra Leonean people that the presidential aspirations of the men of the SLPP are dangerous to the maintenance of peace and security in the country.
All the men aspiring to wear the SLPP crown–Maada Bio, John Benjamin and Kandeh Yumkella–have not done enough to expunge the thuggish and violent instincts and inclinations of their supporters and this intra-party feud within the SLPP has been allowed to fester for too long. Additionally, Bio and Benjamin have a dishonorable record of violence during their junta days in the early to mid 1990s and have done nothing to reinvent themselves.
The Sierra Leone People’s Party ( SLPP ) has a political history built on thuggery, violence , intimidation ( Using the Porro devil as a weapon ) , tribal militias and scotch-earth practices. Even right now, SLPP supporters are being tried in court for going on the rampage on April 27, during the 55th Independence Anniversary and damaging public and private properties , including vehicles and buildings , all because the Police did not allow them to stage a masquerade parade because they had no permit.
Neither Maada Bio nor Benjamin or Kandeh Yumkella has made any credible and concerted efforts to calm down SLPP supporters. All three men resort to high-powered rhetoric now and again about democracy but it has all proved to be mere political platitudes as none of them has taken any real steps to curb violence within their party.
Yesterday’s violence is a slap in the face of these men , because they can never justify why an SLPP supporter would kill another SLPP fanatic and how the SLPP would splinter into thuggish and death squads under their watch.
After unleashing it against the ruling All People’s Congress ( APC ) for long, the SLPP has now turned its thuggery and violence within , preying on its own members. Intra Party scuffles, thuggery and violence within the SLPP have been going on for too long since the three men above made up their mind that will-or-woe, by hook -or-crook, they will definitely become President of Sierra Leone.
There is nothing wrong with Bio, Benjamin and Yumkella aspiring to be President. It is within their rights. But if they cannot control violence even within their own party, how fit are they for purpose ?
MEANWHILE, Maada Bio has released a press statement denouncing the violence and dissociating himself from it. How sincere he is will be seen by his actions in the coming days.
