By Joseph Lamin Kamara
Members of the national executive of the main opposition party are planning to issue out a public statement warning Dr Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella from talking in any media forum about the party whose presidential ticket for the next election he wants to contest for.
Philip Tetema Tondoneh, the Acting Publicity Secretary of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), told Politico on Monday that the documents of clarification presented by Yumkella to the executive prove that he has never registered with the party anywhere in the world.
“Dr Yumkella is not yet a member of SLPP. All the documents he has presented are fictitious,” Tondoneh said.
The National Financial Secretary of SLPP Dr James Rogers said the media embargo on Yumkella, once instituted, would remain in force until the party was convinced that Dr Yumkella was a registered member of the party.
However, Tondoneh said that the party would welcome Dr Yumkella if he decided to register with the party as a new member. But he also said that the party principles stated that anyone contesting in the flagbearer race was required to have spent two or three consecutive years in their locality.
Fode Dabor, a coordinator of the Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella Movement and a member of Yumkella’s legal team, said the regulation would prevent Yumkella from contesting for the presidential ticket if he registered as a new member.
Dabor also contested the plan to restrain Yumkella from speaking about the party on the media, saying “he is a citizen of the country; he has the right to talk about the party of which he is a member.”
Yumkella is a former Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and Special Representative of the UN secretary General on sustainable development. He recently returned home from those capacities, but his presidential ambition is being threatened by illegibility to contest for the flagbearer post of his party. Most of the party’s national officers say he has not officially registered with the party and can therefore not contest the presidential ticket election.
Last week, after his first official visit to the party headquarters was greeted with apparent opposition from members, he says, of the party’s 2012 flagbearer, Julius Maada Bio, Yumkella’s legal team tendered documents to answer the question of the membership of the former UNIDO boss.
In that first official visit Yumkella announced he wanted to upgrade his membership status from “Grand Chief Patron” to “Distinguished Grand Chief Patron.”
The media embargo plan comes after Monday when Yumkella spoke on the popular radio programme “Good Morning Salone” on Radio Democracy in Freetown. On the programme he spoke about ways through which the party could resolve its current internal crises and about how some supporters at the party headquarters spat on him in that first official visit.
But Tondoneh said he made false statement on the programme.
After Yumkella’s legal team presented his documents to the executive, the latter asked the legal team to advise him to register as a new member, but Dabor said they refused to do so. The legal team also asked the executive to document their conclusion that the documents were “fake”, but, according to Dabor, the executive instead asked the legal team to write a letter to the party requesting that. He told Politico on Monday that he had written the letter and they were waiting for response.
SLPP’s Financial Secretary, James Rogers, said they were still digging further into the issue, but their impression on the first documents was that they were not authentic.
Politico on Monday obtained a copy of an SLPP membership card with the name “Alhaji Kandeh K. Yumkella”, signed by Alhaji Usman N. S Jah and Jacob Jusu Saffa, as National Chairman and Secretary General, respectively, of the party. Jah is dead and both he and Saffa ended their tenure before 2013.
Yumkella says he registered with the party in 2013 in the southern regional headquarter town of Bo, but the party’s Regional Chairman Edward Suluku denies that. The former UN employee says Dr Momodu Yilla, an elderly member of the party in the south, did his registration, but the regional secretary Mohamed Alie who Dr Yilla says helped in the registration has denied witnessing any Yumkella registration.
The issue around Yumkella’s membership in the party has been attributed to the disfavour of most supporters and most members of the national executive of SLPP for Yumkella to contest against Julius Maada Bio who appears to have the greatest support among all intending candidates for the presidential ticket.
Rtd Brigadier Bio became Head of State in 1996 after a military palace coup against his immediate boss Valentine Strasser, who was Chairman of the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). In that same year Bio handed over power to a civilian rule headed by late Ahmed Tejan Kabbah. The retired Brigadier went on to contest for the party presidential ticket in 2005, but he lost against Charles Francis Margai and Solomon Ekuma Berewa. Bio also lost against President Ernest Bai Koroma in last election with about 37%.
SLPP’s Acting Secretary General Alieu Badara Kamara earlier said that Bio was easier to support than Yumkella.
Politico tried several times to speak to Dr Yumkella on the issue, but he would not respond to calls.
(C) Politico 01/09/15
