By Sitta Turay
They say every human being is Political. I agree. I also believe that there are human beings born to be political. They are natural politicians with that unique sense of a strategist and a winner. Ambassador Alimamy Bangura, president Bio’s man in Conakry is one such person.
Ambassador Bangura started his political journey back in his home district of Kambia, specifically in Mambolo town where he participated in several political activities as a young man. He would go on to serve in several capacities including as Constituency Chairman for the SLPP in Mambolo, District Young Generation Leader and later National Young Generation Secretary. Because of his strategic acumen, he was admired by the senior SLPP leadership because by this time they had spotted a rising political star with the potential to go all the way. The strategy of allowing young, brave and talented party activists to break through the normally thick wall of big man hierarchical politics was in full swing with the late president Kabbah. That opened the way for the young Alimamy Bangura to attract the attention of the then Secretary General of the SLPP, Jacob Jusu Saffa. Saffa, himself a rising politician at the time, is today the country’s Chief Minister.
When SLPP lost power in 2007, Bangura became one of the persons that helped keep the devastated membership together not just in Freetown but throughout Sierra Leone. Particular attention was paid to the young volatile members based at the SLPP Headquarters in Freetown. The SLPP headquarter would be attacked at least three times by APC operatives and Alimamy Bangura was among those who were humiliated.
The SLPP was for a time unattractive to many of their own supporters leading to some distancing themselves from party activities or even visiting the Wallace Johnson street office. At this time it was down to people like Ambassador Alimamy Bangura to stand up and offer free services to the party to boost the morale of those who dared to hang around. How Alimamy Bangura and a handful of others managed themselves and also helped other party members financially even in opposition was like magic.
Alimamy Bangura then carved out a space for himself in the administration of the SLPP during the years in opposition. He tells young party members these days that it was his belief in the mission of the SLPP that kept him going and that he always knew the party would return to power by way of the ballot box before long.
In the days of intra-party struggles over the leadership of the SLPP going into the 2018 elections Ambassador Alimamy Bangura was unambiguously committed to the leadership of then candidate Julius Maada Bio and he worked really hard throughout the long and cruel campaign that would end with his candidate clinching the SLPP leadership and going on to win the presidential election. He says he resisted all the temptation that came his way to ensure Julius Maada entered State House.
It came as no surprise then that President Bio appointed him as Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea, a country that is extremely important to Sierra Leone in terms of security, trade and sub-regional diplomacy. That was not a mistake. Ambassador Alimamy Bangura has proved his detractors wrong.
The ambassador’s home district lies just across the border from Guinea and as he moves to further impact the place of his birth and consolidate the political gains of his party in the area, the opposition is understandably jittery and that explains recent newspaper articles making outlandish claims against him for totally fake issues.
Ambassador Bangura says all he is doing is “bringing Kambia back to life, increasing the political relevance of my district. The opposition is scared about how the people will react against them at the polls so they are making baseless accusations’.
He says he is serving as a unifier, bringing all the people together “and I am making huge sacrifices just to put smiles on the faces of my people. I am settling long-running cases and all parties are commending me for this approach to conflict resolution and I will continue to do this’.
Ambassador Alimamy Bangura’s doors in Kambia are always open and like some Scandinavian politician, he receives people all the time. They call him “Kambia Ambassador-on-the-spot”. He said: ‘I want to meet and spend time with all the people of Kambia; this is not about party politics. We are all from this great district and we should do everything to help our people’.
Ambassador Bangura says his style of leadership has inspired many to desert their parties and join the SLPP and that many disillusioned people ‘have found reason to be active in politics once again on the side of my party’.
He has influenced the construction of a brand new classic SLPP party office in Kambia leading the way for other parties to attempt to do the same. He says the party office represents a solid commitment of the people of Kambia to the SLLP.
He just delivered a ward to the SLPP in an election everyone thought either the APC or the NGC would win. The political map of Kambia is being re-drawn in a way the main opposition parties have failed to understand. Their political calculations going into the next election in two years is to stop the moving spirit behind the speeding SLPP train in Kambia and it would appear as if planting fake news in nondescript newspapers is the opening act in their drama.
Ambassador Bangura says he will continue to do his job in Conakry and keep his roots firmly on the ground in Kambia, ‘no amount of media blackmail will obstruct me. Let’s all take the New Direction opened up by President Bio and this country will reach the Promised Land’.
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