By Sallieu T. Kamara
I have lately become pretty shaken up by the constant stream of stories about alleged intense rivalry between the two political heavyweights in Port Loko district – Alhaji Alpha Kanu and Alhaji Kemoh Sesay. The former is Minister of Information and Communication and the latter is Minister of Political Affairs. The stories keep popping up now and again. But the more they pop up, the more I deliberately refuse to believe that they are true. My refusal to believe them stems from my strong desire that such political rivalry will never again be a feature of politics in the district. Port Loko has had its own fair share of political rivalry in the past and it is still reeling from its corresponding devastating consequences. So each time I read about it in the newspapers or listen to people talking about it, it brings an ominous reminder of how such political rivalry has greatly crippled development in the district. Honestly, this is not the first time development in Port Loko district has been beset by fierce political rivalry. And I am sure it will not be the last. The genesis of the political rivalry in Port Loko district can be traced way back to the dawn of the late Sorie Ibrahim Koroma’s meteoric rise to power in the early 1970s. SI Koroma, as he was fondly called, was born in Port Loko and helped found the All People’s Congress Party in 1960. He contested and won the 1962 parliamentary elections to represent the Central One constituency in Freetown. He was re-elected in the 1967 elections to represent the same constituency. After the brief interregnum caused by David Lansana’s coup d’état following the announcement of the 1967 elections results, and following the return to civilian rule in 1968, Siaka Stevens appointed SI Koroma as Minister of Trade and Industry. SI Koroma soon established his enormous influence within the rank and file of the party. But he was under no illusion that he would remain in Freetown and wield the kind of power and authority he was aiming at. In the same token, he knew that what he could not get in Freetown, he would surely get in his native home town of Port Loko. SI Koroma considered himself a political sojourner who had come to Freetown to explore and to conquer. He saw the taking-over of governance by the APC in 1968 as the fulfilment of a long cherished dream. He had conquered and it was time for him to take the political booty back home to his people in Port Loko. But he did not want to ungratefully turn his back against the people of Central One constituency, a place where he cut his teeth in politics, and got elected twice to parliament under very trying moments. So he started plotting his homeward return with military precision. With the shrewdness that later came to characterize his political career, SI Koroma wasted no time in setting the machinery for his return in motion. Closed-door meetings started springing up in Port Loko and Freetown. Delegations of party faithful began arriving in Freetown to request SI Koroma to return home. All of these were meant to give residents of Central One constituency the impression that the pressure being mounted on SI Koroma was genuinely and truly coming from his kith and kin in Port Loko, and that he had no hand in it. Whilst SI Koroma was preparing for his triumphal return, there was another budding politician in Port Loko district, who, like SI Koroma, was intensely ambitious and highly obsessed with the determination of becoming the political czar of the district. He was Alimamy Khazali. Many people within the APC party and in Port Loko considered Alimamy, then Minister of Information, to be more mature, more experienced, more educated and more native of Port Loko than SI Koroma. Those who were old enough to witness the then ensuing political drama described the rivalry between these two heavyweights as “very fierce”. As each party was gearing up for what would have been a protracted political showdown, Alimamy Khazali got caught up in a murder case involving the sale and murder of a housewife, Marie Dumbuya and her son, in Sendugu, Sanda Magbonlonthor chiefdom in Port Loko district. The sale, which saw the deposit of Le38,000 being handed over to Marie Dumbuya’s husband Sunday Kargbo, allegedly took place on 14 April 1972. At the beginning of the trial in the Port Loko magistrate court, there was no mention of Alimamy Khazali’s name. And the way his name later came up in the trial was very dramatic, to say the least. As parliamentary representative of the area where the murder had taken place, he demonstrated a very keen interest in the trial. He was almost always seen hanging around the court vicinity at the Port Loko District Office to catch up with proceedings, all in the name of caring for his constituents, it was presumed. It was in the afternoon of one of the early days of the trial and barely ten minutes after Alimamy Khazali had left the court vicinity that day that prosecution witness 9, Sunday Kargbo, informed the court that he would like to change the statement that he had earlier made to the police. Much to everybody’s surprise, Sunday Kargbo implicated Alimamy Khazali in his new statement. The Port Loko High Court presided over by Justice Marcus Cole convicted Alimamy Khazali and four others in December 1972. The convicts responded swiftly by lodging an appeal against the conviction and sentence. But even this move could not save the life of Alimamy Khazali. In February 1974, the Court of Appeal of Sierra Leone dismissed his appeal and those of two others and affirmed their conviction and sentence, meaning each of them “shall be hanged by the neck until he is dead”. May I hasten to say that this analysis is not, in any way, meant to apportion blame to anybody for the events narrated above. But rather, to enable all of us better understand how the reported political rivalry that we are witnessing today in Port Loko district started and the enormous havoc it has wrecked on the district on several fronts. Following the execution of Alimamy Khazali, SI Koroma was confronted with the stiff resistance of Adikali Modu III of Maforki chiefdom who stoutly defied all approaches to bring him into the fold of the then rising APC after he had been dethroned. Adikali Modu was highly influential both in his district of Port Loko and within the rank and file of the Sierra Leone People’s Party. He was very hardworking and development-oriented. He made Port Loko town a model of cleanliness for the whole country during his tenure as paramount chief. SI Koroma was looking forward to utilizing these credentials to further accelerate development in Port Loko and the only way he thought this would be done was for Adikali Modu to abandon the SLPP and join the APC. But Adikali Modu defiantly said “no way”. The rivalry this time around was not about wrestling for power and authority, but it was more of personality conflict: who-is-who sort of thing. Nonetheless, it created tensions and divisions within the district. As a result, Adikali Modu resigned from public life and consigned himself to his Kondato Road residence where he was always spotted in the evening hours sitting on the frontage of his house with his trademark radio closed by listening to the BBC. For residents and descendants of Port Loko who mattered at the time, they had an option of either joining the camp of SI Koroma or calculating the costs for joining the camp of Adikali Modu or for remaining neutral. The acrimony further deepened when in the mid 1970s SI Koroma caused PC Bai Forki Sonkoi to be crowned paramount chief of Maforki chiefdom even though Adikali Modu was the clear winner of the elections. This singular act incurred SI Koroma the wrath of his people in Port Loko, including even his diehard supporters. Adikali Modu remained in oblivion brooding over both his future and how to take his revenge. He saw the involvement of SI Koroma in a gruesome road accident along the Makeni highway that almost cost him his life, and would later cost him the presidency, as the most opportune time to inflict his revenge. But Adikali Modu soon realized that for him to spite back on the then almost helpless SI Koroma, he needed to join the APC, a party he had throughout refused to associate with. He soon became an ardent supporter of Joseph Saidu Momoh who succeeded the octogenarian Siaka Stevens, and his wife, Fatu Modu, became a permanent face in APC-organized events. Despite all these, he never realized his dream of making a third return to the throne of Maforki chiefdom as paramount chief. He was killed by rebels in his residence when they invaded Port Loko town. As SI Koroma was tightening his iron grip on the politics of the district, another rivalry – real or perceived – emerged. This time it was to be provided by Dr. Sheka Hassan Kanu, born and bred in Port Loko town, Falaba Road to be precise. The highly educated, soft-spoken and bald-headed pint-sized Sheka Kanu had just completed his studies and was itching to return home and participate actively in the politics of the country. But that was not to be; at least not so soon. Sheka Kanu was swiftly given a diplomatic appointment to represent the country in Germany as Ambassador. In fact, a friend once jokingly told me that for him to come home and briefly hobnob with his people, Dr Sheka Kanu had to plead to be allowed to do so. I remember the first time I met Sheka Kanu. Up until that day, I had known virtually nothing about his academic prowess. There was an event at the then Port Loko Women’s Teachers’ College where he was invited as guest speaker. When he arrived and alighted from his car, we saw this diminutive bald-headed man wearing a very short rappel that did not fully cover his waist. Somebody pointed to him and said “that is Dr Sheka Kanu”. As students, his physical appearance instantly put us off. But when he opened his lips, we were mesmerized by his eloquence, brainpower and his flawless command of the English Language. We all became his fans. Several years later when I was a reporter with For di People Newspaper and when he was leader of the National Action Party, I was assigned to cover his campaign activities across the country ahead of the aborted 1992 elections. I was very close to him. We talked to each other intimately. So I shared my perceptions about him on the first day that I saw him at the Port Loko Women’s Teachers’ College. He burst out in hearty laughter and then asked: “your perception about me now?” I only responded with a broad smile without uttering a word. Despite SI Koroma’s reported maneuvering, Dr Sheka Kanu did not stay abroad for long. He returned home to contest for a parliamentary seat. But Port Loko Central constituency was a “no-go zone” for him despite his popularity and the deep-seated respect that the people had for him because Port Loko Central constituency had already become SI Koroma’s political domain. So a deal was struck that saw Sheka Kanu moving over to his maternal home of Lokomassama to contest the election. He represented that constituency for several years and brought significant developments there. His brothers, Osman Tollo Kanu and Alhaji Alpha Kanu, both followed his footsteps of representing Lokomassama in parliament. This move, I believe, is still very largely influencing the perceptions of residents of Port Loko towards Alpha Kanu and Kemoh Sesay. Where does each of them most belong? Port Loko? Lokomassama? The relationship between SI Koroma and Alhaji Abu Bakar Kamara of Bureh Kasseh Makonteh chiefdom was not better either. AB Kamara, as he was popularly called, first entered parliament in 1977 after SA Fofana, a founding and highly respected member of the APC, was forced to move over to Lungi to make way for him to represent Port Loko North Constituency in parliament. It was believed that it was SI Koroma who engineered the coming of AB Kamara first into the APC from the SLPP and then to contest for the parliamentary seat in his home chiefdom of BKM, which made up the Port Loko North Constituency. The assumption of SI Koroma was that with people like AB Kamara, Port Loko district would have more people in high positions in government, which, in turn, could be translated into more development in the district. But SI Koroma soon got the shock of his life when he realized that his approach to politics and development in the district was completely different from AB Kamara’s. The relationship remained lukewarm until when SI Koroma went into permanent political oblivion. I am bringing this up for us to appreciate that what we are hearing about political rivalry today by sons and daughters of Port Loko district should not be a surprise. What, in fact, I think should surprise us is the deafening silence of very influential people in the district over the issue. There are the traditional rulers, religious leaders and other highly respected people in the district who, I believe, have a moral responsibility to keep their kith and kin together and to do everything within their power to ensure that meaningful development takes place in the district. They owe it to the younger generation, and they owe it to their forefathers who bequeathed this moral and social responsibility to them. But sadly enough, it is apparent that they are refusing to own up to their responsibilities and seek for solutions to these perennial issues because many of them know that they are part of the problem. Let them do something, and they should do it NOW. Let them say at the end of the day that things are as they are in the district not for lack of trying. But I am pretty sure that if they approach this in a sincere and forthright manner, nothing will stand in their way of success. And if these allegations of rivalry between Alpha Kanu and Kemoh Sesay are for real and those who have a moral responsibility to intervene continue to play the dummy game, then, the district once again stands to lose out in terms of development and cohesiveness. Like in the past, both gentlemen are political colossus not only for the district, but also for the entire country and hold a lot of promise, but by seeing themselves as adversaries will do them no good, nor the district. Already, the district is still a long way to fully count the casualties caused by the litany of past political rivalries. By every standard, Port Loko town is a complete ghost of what it was during the creamy days of SI Koroma and there is nothing concrete to suggest that this situation will change in the foreseeable future. So can the district afford to nurture new rivalries? Do I need to remind Port Loko that there is strength in unity?
