By Hajaratu Kalokoh
The Sierra Leone Government has said it doesn’t recognize the choice of Joseph Amara Bangura as president of the National Union of Students (NUSS).
Student Union presidents from various colleges across the country recently announced the selection of Bangura as head of the umbrella national student body after a botched attempt to conduct an election, after over a decade without a legitimate body representing students. They made the selection during the NUSS delegate conference on 29th November in Kenema.
Bangura, who is from the Institute of Public Administration and Management (IPAM), was selected over his only challenger James Joseph Yovonie from Fourah Bay College (FBC).
But the selection process was done under controversial circumstances.
The Police in the district had announced the cancellation of the convention, citing the potential for violence. They said they were not sure that the students could go on with what was intended to be an election process without a fracas.
The Police’s concern was raised after Njala University were prevented from taking part because they didn’t have a student union body, which sparked serious argument among members in the union who held that Njala was been disenfranchised.
“The police officer by the name of Francis Musa Foray, the Regional Officer East, took the microphone and told us that they have had engagement and they had advised that the election should be cancelled because of security reason ,” Dwight Nicole, President of College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS), told Politico.
Nicole added: “There was no violence. Even when they announced that the election had been cancelled, we were calm and peaceful.”
Bangura’s selection is now subject to the approval of the Ministry of Higher Education.
But Idrissa Sannoh, Acting Student Secretary in the Ministry, told Politico that they did not recognize the selection of Mr Bangura because he wasn’t elected. Sannoh said the situation in the hall in Kenema where the convention was scheduled to take place was so chaotic that the National Electoral Commission, which was invited to conduct the election, wasn’t in a position to do so.
“No single ballot was casted. The place was chaotic. The police said the place was not conducive and so they could not provide security for us. It [election] was cancelled. And we even refunded their transport fare and told them to wait for another congress,” said Mr Sannoh.
“We do not recognize any NUSS government,” he stressed.
In an interview with Politico, Bangura’s challenger, Yovonie also said he didn’t recognize the outcome of the convention nor the coalition of Presidents who endorsed his opponent as president of the Union.
“Let me use this opportunity to tell the general populace that the news circulating around social media that Amara Joseph Bangura of IPAM has been endorsed as the NUSS President is fake, fallacious and fictitious. This coalition of all Presidents, I consider them as a bunch of miscreant students with no direction and who are bent on violating our precious NUSS Constitution,” he said.
A total of 65 students attended the conference as delegates, representing six different colleges across the country. Sixty of them endorsed Bangura as the new president of the union, ten of them were presidents of college campuses.
In a statement by the students who endorsed Bangura, they said they wanted to focus on the future, now that NUSS had been reconstituted.
“We are no longer focusing on what had happened during the election. Our focus now as a campaign is the endorsement of him and we are looking forward to have an engagement with the ministry and look forward to how we should inaugurate him into office,” they said in the statement.
Bangura himself told Politico that his focus is on ending the suffering of students in tertiary institutions.
He said: “A time for service, to change the narrative of students, to make the union more student centric. But more importantly to ensuring that the deplorable conditions of students are changed for better and to make the voices of students stronger and louder.”
NUSS has been marred by controversies for over a decade. The association has been accused of being a stooge to the government of the day and out of touch with the realities in its constituent colleges.
In October this year, University student leaders called on government to organize a NUSS convention to formally reconstitute the body after series of successful elections in different colleges across the country.
This convention was supposed to be a fresh start, but instead it has provoked further controversy.
The camp, which supports Bangura, say the current government intends to force Yovonie on them.
“The decision to endorse Mr Bangura as NUSS President and six other elective positions came as a result of the gross police interference in the electoral process,” reads the statement issued by the student leaders.
Copyright © 2019 Politico Online
