Commentary

The main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) party ventriloquist, Adebayor, who has for the last five years incited demonstrations against the governing Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and pelted invectives and diatribes against responsible Sierra Leoneans and the Mende ethnic group in particular, has again called on Sierra Leoneans to sit at home next week Monday and Tuesday. He ordered that business entities should be shut down and that no vehicle should ply the streets on those days to ensure everybody stays at home in protest of the quality of the voter ID cards which they have vehemently condemned, as well as the alleged reluctance of the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL) to release the voter registration data to them.

If the APC are now condemning the voter ID cards which their presidential candidate Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara wholeheartedly endorsed on the day he collected his, it is obvious that they are feigning flimsy excuses to have the June 24 multitier elections postponed despite the President pronounced the election date over a year ago. They are also complaining about the non-release of election data by ECSL which they believe should be released several weeks to elections according to law.

We are a country governed by laws and we believe any attempt by a political party or a group of citizens to disrupt the electioneering process would be strongly resisted by the State security and those caught in the event would be dealt with according to the laws of the State. The Government has invested so much in the electioneering process that it would be very unreasonable for a single political party to be complaining at the eve of the elections to have them postponed for selfish reasons.

For APC to cry foul at the eleventh hour is like they are not actually prepared for the elections. A political analyst recently said the APC have tripartite problems – lack of funds, disunity and lawlessness. One of the problems, lawlessness, is what they will be unleashing on Monday and Tuesday as ordered by their ventriloquist, Adebayor, who is thousands of miles away from Sierra Leone telling gullible APC supporters what they should do.

The August 10, 2022 insurrection has taught us a lesson that Adebayor’s threats should never be underestimated. That is why the State security should be on alert in all APC strongholds to the possibility of another insurrection that will have the propensity to undermine the entire electoral process. For instance, MAC-P should be invoked before Monday to ensure that enough personnel of the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) and the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF) are deployed in East End and Central Freetown, as well as in the Northwest and Northeast which are the traditional APC strongholds.

This time the Government and the national security would be blamed if they fail to put situation under control should gullible APC supporters under the guise of PPP take to the streets and cause mayhem.