By Umaru Fofana
A couple of weeks ago I was shooting a documentary in Kenema. Just as I had completed establishing the city through its clock tower and was folding my tripod emerged a fair-complexioned man who apparently had just been told who I was. He was stern in his messaging to me.
“Please I want you to go and tell the world that we will accept no leader of the Sierra Leone People’s Party if not Maada Bio” he said as if ordering me. He repeated it three times. “But the party constitution does not allow him to continue in his present position” I suggested to him. His response, as if he had rehearsed it, was swift. “The party can change the constitution like the APC did to theirs at their last delegates’ conference”. He is a fellow I seemed to have met before but could not tell where or even who he was, besides being a Bio fanatic. Since I was busy with my crew and we were heading somewhere else I thanked him and dashed to continue with my work.
The outburst of that man is a microcosm of what obtains in the main opposition party today. For his part, for his interest.And for others in theirs too. That explains the reason for the seemingly deep-seated rumble of discontent and animosity among especially some key but also rank and file members of a party whose members boast of its strong internal democratic credentials. For some of them what obtains at present is testament to that. For others it is in stark contrast to it.
At the party’s national delegates’ conference in Kenema in 2009, as if learning from some of the contributing factors that led to their defeat, the SLPP sought to amend their constitution. Among other things, it was agreed that anyone who became a member of the executive could not run to bear its flag for the upcoming presidential election. I attended the congress and there was not a single dissenting voice to the bar. They also agreed that anyone running to become standard-bearer must campaign with their future running-mate. Apparently learning from the votes the delayed announcement by Solomon Berewa of Momodu Koroma as his number two man cost the party in the 2007 election.
At the follow-up press conference in Freetown, the Chairman of the party, John Oponjo Benjamin, his deputy Dr Kadi Sesay and the assistant secretary general Alpha Timbo all seemed to be negating the letter and spirit of that amendment as agreed in Kenema. Apparently they wanted to go back on the word and agreement of the convention.
It appeared to me even at that early stage that all of them, including John Benjamin, wanted to become the presidential candidate of the party in 2012. It was little wonder therefore that at the congress in Bo in 2010, tempers flared and edges frayed. The meeting resolved that all executive members, excepting the National Chairman could run for the flag-bearer position so long they resigned six months before the elections. Naturally, this did not leave a sweet taste in the mouth of the SLPP Chairman and that explains why he has been bitter since. Some of the speculations about him undermining Maada Bio in the last election may have been only the figment of the imagination of some party members but it cannot be far from the truth that he was happy that Bio lost the race.
In apparent compensation for denying John Benjamin to run to be the party’s presidential candidate, a key provision in the party’s constitution was tampered with if only to please him and have a compromise. Hence since, the Chairman of the party, and not its flag-bearer, became its Leader. That singular action, plus the constitutional provision that a flag-bearer ceases to be Leader of the party if he loses the presidential election, are the blend that has come to haunt the SLPP today and if they are not careful may rip off some scalps in the future.
The SLPP constitution is clear that a flag-bearer ceases to be leader after a failed presidential bid. But that was on the proviso that the candidate was Leader of the party. Since the Bo congress that has become irrelevant because the flag-bearer no longer is the party leader. The party apparatchik could be referred to as having been naïve and short-sighted not to have read what lay ahead in just a couple of years.
But perhaps exactly because of the irrelevance of the position of flag-bearer after a failed bid, since he no longer leads his party, the current hoo-ha over what becomes of Maada Bio is perhaps foolish. In my view he should simply just be the ex-officio member of the National Executive Committee that the party constitution allows him to become and let John Benjamin lead until his mandate ends. The provision that a flag-bearer ceases to be leader after a failed presidential bid does not in any way preclude him from standing to be its standard-bearer, again.
Never, since the reintroduction of multiparty democracy in Sierra Leone, has there been a failed presidential candidate who has been as influential in determining the next presidential candidate of his party as Maada Bio will be if he decides not to run in 2018. When Eddie Turay ran unsuccessfully in 1996, he was of no consequence in determining who led the party in 2002 or in 2007. Invariably when Solomon Berewa lost in 2007, hardly did he have any say in who the candidate became last year. Bio is different in that regard and he has become a colossus who any future aspirant to lead the party will have to count on.
It is not off the pale to think that the SLPP, even though they have officially not accepted the result of the November presidential election, should be doing some actual soul-searching and raising funds ahead of the next polls. Five years may seem very far away but after next year the countdown begins. They need not be told that it is easier for them to win at the next polls than at the last. Ernest Bai Koroma, definitely never expected to win in 2002 when he ran against President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
But rather than SLPP members and supporters baying for each other’s blood over a power tussle which actually brings no power to anyone, they should let Bio and Benjamin recoil if only to stop the unnecessary distractions that is causing the party. They can both run to be the party’s standard bearer if they wish to. What their political bloodletting is yielding is more haemorrhaging which may be so embarrassing and disuniting that some may decide to leave the party especially in a country where many, perhaps most, politicians especially in the opposition lack principles and are easy to be courted by the ruling party or be funded to lead a make-believe opposition party which the PPRC will gladly and speedily register.
SLPP should try to quickly organise themselves so as to start doing the work of an effective opposition who will provide alternative solutions to the country’s myriad problems. That, and the fact there are rules governing institutions such as political parties, should persuade that Bio supporter in Kenema that ultimatums do not work in a situation like this. And the pro-Benjamins should also accept that Bio may not be the fittest person to be the SLPP candidate but remains the most popular within the party.
