By Kemo Cham
More signs of crack within the leadership of the embattled opposition Coalition for Change (C4C) party has emerged with the imposition of a court injunction against its current executive committee.
The High Court in Freetown slammed the injunction on Tuesday, 12 August, ordering the executive committee of the country’s third largest party in Parliament to desist from undertaking any official activity until a decision on a petition is taken by the court, according to courts document seen by Politico.
The court’s decision followed a petition by a faction within the party which is challenging the legitimacy of the executive committee headed by Tamba R. Sandi, as National Chairman of the party. Mr Sandi is named alongside seven other defendants, including the party’s National Secretary General, Alysious Koighor Foh and its National Publicity Secretary, Lawrence Coker.
According to the court’s document signed by the Master and Registrar of the High Court, 10 complainants, led by Sahr Nyaama, filed the petition which is before Justice SO Taylor.
The petition comes about two weeks after the party’s executive unceremoniously changed its leadership caucus in parliament. Saa Emerson Lamina, MP for Constituency 030, was removed as head of the party’s 9-member bench in the House after he was accused of insubordination. The party’s leadership accused Lamina of violating his oath of office by voting against its decision in a contentious matter before the House last month.
At the time Lamina questioned the legitimacy of the leadership, noting that their tenure of office had long expired and therefore didn’t have the locus standing to take such decision.
C4C was formed in the run-up to the 2018 general elections as a breakaway faction from the then governing All People’s Congress (APC), after the unceremonious removal of former Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana from office. Mr Sam-Sumana would go on to run for President under the C4C ticket, coming fourth in the race. But the party went on to win eight seats in the parliament, all of them from its stronghold of Kono in the eastern part of the country.
Last year, the former VP surprisingly resigned from C4C as its leader to rejoin the APC. Since then the party has been threading on shaky grounds.
Analysts say one of two factions within the party appears to be loyal to Mr Sam-Sumana, while the other faction is refusing to be dictated by outside forces.
Tamba Sandi, the interim National Chairman of C4C, declined to comment on the issue when contacted by Politico. He said they didn’t want to flout the court order.
“When we get the details, we will determine our next move,” he said in a text message response.
The Court is expected to make a decision on the matter at an unspecified date.
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