By Aminata Phidelia Allie
National publicity secretary of the embattled United Democratic Movement (UDM), Editayo George Temple has said that the Political Parties’ Regulation Commission was so weak that it compromised their case against the party leader.
He called on government to “offload” the commission’s leadership for leaking confidential documents tendered as evidence to the commission in a matter that was brought before it by the executive of the party against “our rouge leader, Mohamed Bangura.”
He singled out “the unprofessional tendencies” of the Registrar General of the regulatory body, Abraham John, asking that he resigns and be forced to do so by the government because “he used his personal relationship with Mr Bangura to flunk the case.”
He reaffirmed their call for the resignation of the leader and chairman of their party, adding that they would no longer “tolerate his indiscipline and dictatorship.”
Temple said:“ I cannot be at the forefront of the party and allow the malpractices of Mr Bangura to continue,” adding that he was ready to help both the PPRC and the anti-corruption commission to unearth the corrupt practices going on in the party.
Althoughit stopped at some point, he said they had contributed their monthly subscriptions and therefore expected their money to be safe in the bank.
“We won’t allow our efforts to be a white elephant,” he said and threatened to challenge their leader “to reveal the source of the money he was currently using to build the three masterpiece houses in Freetown.”
“He neither runs a public transport nor owns a tailor shop. Let him tell us how he makes his money,” he added.
He also accused the UDM leader of tampering with the party’s constitution without a general consensus to allow his wife to be a signatory to the party’s bank account.He accused the UDM leader of “shamelessly bluffing about his attachment to the president”.
“He must step down,” he emphasized, and asked the PPRC to withhold UDM’s share of the money donated to political parties by President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria.
The PPRC Registrar General refused to comment on the allegations. His communications chief, Lucien Momoh, said they were planning a press conference for Tuesday 22 January, 2013 but could not confirm whether allegations raised by Mr Temple would be addressed.
The UDM leader could not be reached but he had earlier told Politico that the issue about his resignation was “rubbish”. He said there was no way he could account to “certain disgruntled members” because he had used his personal money to run the affairs of the party.
