As if their intention is to take this country back to war, about an hour ago today, a large group of Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) supporters clad in their green attires and singing war-like songs, attacked the headquarters of the ruling All People’s Congress ( APC) in Freetown
Eyewitness reports state that as the SLPP crowd was passing they began to hurl invectives against APC and its supporters. All of a sudden, missiles thrown from within the crowd started landing on the APC secretariat and some missiles even hit some APC supporters who were standing inside the secretariat compound.
Eyewitnesses state that the sudden attack on the APC secretariat was unprovoked and a deliberate attempt by the rowdy SLPP group to cause mayhem and destruction.
“I was standing close to the main gate and I saw some youths inside the crowd that looked drugged. They took what looked like empty pints and other missiles from inside their backpacks and before I knew what was coming I heard a very loud smash of pints breaking against the wall and I ran for cover,” said a close relative of APC National Treasurer Sani Sesay, an elderly woman who gave her name as Koni Yabai. Other eyewitnesses said the behavior and unprovoked attack on the APC headquarters and members is a deliberate attempt by the SLPP to cause confusion and draw the APC into a fight even though the APC has remained peaceful and law-abiding all throughout the recent political campaigns.
Against this background, we are calling on the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) and other security agencies to immediately step into this issue to put a halt to such unwarranted attacks which have the tendency to reverse the developmental gains the APC and President Ernest Bai Koroma has achieved for the country.
It could be recalled that Sierra Leone suffered the brunt of a civil war which had its roots in the same behavior being put up by the SLPP. It is feared that if the SLP and other security agents fail to address the issue with sternness, then it is feared that the SLPP would do worst in the run-up to the March 2018 elections.
Finally, it is on record that ever since the APC came to power in 2007, the party’s supporters have never used violence as a means of putting across any message. Had it been in the days of Siaka Stevens or SI Koroma, and the days of Highway, the SLPP supporters would not have been crazy to attack the APC. It is therefore very fortunate for the SLPP that the APC under President Koroma has ensured that his supporters and members eschew violence and the APC party has been the most peaceful party in the history of this country.
It is also important to note that while the SLPP supporters are disrupting the peace and causing mayhem, they are affecting the peace and tranquility of innocent people who have no business in politics.
Based on these violent scenes, we are advising President Koroma to always be watching his back and while he would be away in Makeni, he must double his security apparatus because no one should underestimate what the SLPP is capable of doing in their desperation to attain power at all cost.
*© APC Warriors Comunication Network*
