By Sorie Fofana.
When President Alhaji Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah returned from exile in Conakry, Guinea in March 1998, he came to the realization that it was time to open the doors of the Party for others to come in. Under pressure from some senior party members not to appoint non-SLPP members to key positions in the government, Kabbah decided to write an open letter to the SLPP, declaring that he was President of Sierra Leone and not President of the SLPP.
To the shock and dismay of several SLPP members, Kabbah brought in Dr. Kadi Sesay and appointed her first as Minister of Development and later as Minister of Trade and Industry and Alpha Timbo as Minister of Labour and Social Security.
Kabbah was later forced by negative newspaper headlines to defend his decision of opening up the party when he said in Kenema that even if the SLPP wins the whole of South/East, they would not win the Presidential and Parliamentary elections if they fail to bring in other people especially from the North and the Western Area.
Kabbah later brought in Lloyd During as Minister of Energy and Power replacing Emmanuel Grant and Madam Abator Thomas as Minister of Health and Sanitation. Both of them hail from the Western Area.
Kabbah had first brought in Agnes Taylor Lewis and Amy Smyth as Cabinet Ministers. Both of them hail from the Western Area as well.
Kabbah won re-election in 2002 by a convincing margin, avoiding a run-off election with Ernest Bai Koroma of the APC.
Solomon Berewa
When Solomon Berewa was elected in Makeni as SLPP party flag bearer in 2005, Kabbah advised him to note that it was his duty to bring the party together. He reminded him that many of the key people in the party did not support or reluctantly supported him for the position of flag bearer.
It has to be said that Dr. Prince Alex Harding (a senior member of the party) did not hesitate to tell Kabbah that Berewa was not popular within the party.
To his credit, by the time the 2007 elections were held, Berewa had endeared himself to the rank and file of the party. Only a few senior members of the party refused to embrace and even support Berewa’s candidature. Berewa lost the 2007 elections much to the astonishment of many party members.
After Berewa’s defeat in 2007, the SLPP went into disarray. To his credit, John Benjamin as National Chairman, fought very hard to give the party some semblance of visibility by holding his regular monthly press conferences to fearlessly lambast the APC administration of President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma.
After eleven years in opposition, the SLPP under Julius Maada Bio defeated the APC in the Presidential election in 2018.
Way Forward For The SLPP
Now that the SLPP have elected a new National Executive and have overwhelmingly endorsed their flag bearer in continuity, President Dr. Julius Maada Bio ahead of the 2023 elections, the party’s leadership must work every hard to bring everybody together. All the various camps within the party must be dissolved with immediate effect, lift all suspensions and bring everybody together. That is the best way forward for the SLPP!
Tejan Kabbah once noted that politics is a number game. The party needs everybody on board now, especially those who had either defected from the party or had suspended their membership from the party.
It was Solomon Berewa who once described the SLPP as a broad church. President Dr. Julius Maada Bio should endeavour to bring the party together by embracing all those who had either left the party or had suspended their membership from the party.
Indeed, politics is a number game.
The more, the merrier!!
