By Alpha Daramy Sesay
The Vice Chairlady of the ruling All People's Congress in Constituency 106, in central Freetown, has denounced her membership of the party during a community meeting at Susan’s Bay. Fatu Kanu said she would now support the main opposition Sierra Leone People's Party. She said she and “many others” in the community had on Sunday 28 October 2012 officially joined the SLPP.
Kanu said they had denounced their membership of the APC because they were allegedly maltreated by the party, adding that “under the Ernest Bai Koroma administration the masses have continued to suffer...There is hunger almost everywhere. Our children cannot afford better education because of high school fees, and our husbands are unemployed”.
She said they as women wanted better facilities which she hoped the SLPP could provide for the suffering masses and called on her women folks to rally behind her to ensure that the APC were swept out of office on 17 November.
The SLPP Western Area chairman, Brima Keite, who was present at the declaration, said “for development to come to the Susan’s Bay the people should not allow the APC to lie to them again.” He said that some members of parliament, mayor and councilors in the present government had “woefully failed” and had done nothing to improve the lives of people.
He admonished party supporters to know that “removing the APC from the helm of affairs is a national service they must be rendered to the party.”
Mr. Keita said it was high time the SLPP voted out the APC and ensured that they assumed office after the November 17 polls.
“It will be a mistake if the Susan’s Bay inhabitants voted the incumbent president Ernest Bai Koroma for another five years [because] they will surely die of hunger”, he concluded.
Responding however to the defection of Fatu Kanu, APC Secretary General, Victor Bockarie Foh, said she was “a self-styled” vice chairlady. “My party is not even aware of any such denouncement and defection”, Foh said, adding, “We do not even have such a position in our party. So whoever that vice chair lady is, we as a party have disowned her,” he told Politico on the phone.
