Yumkellah Is The First Casualty in the APC’s War against Maada Bio

The fact is the SLPP remains the largest opposition party in the country, both regarding numbers and its present organizational potential.

It is unfortunate that – Kandeh Yumkellah – our “global citizen” – walked himself so quickly into the dictator’s so-called legal trap. With all of his United Nations credentials and his supposed international exposure, one would have expected Yumkellah and his NGC colleagues to be aware of these constitutional and legal questions surrounding the pursuit of power. I am eager to see how the NGC will fight back.

But let it be clear that the APC is not fighting Kandeh Yumkellah because they believe he stands a chance to win the upcoming elections. Not. The APC is fighting against a possible Maada Bio presidency, and they see Yumkellah’s presence in the polls as a factor that favors the SLPP’s chances since the NGC’s support is largely in the west and northern parts of Sierra Leone.

As I said a few days ago, Ernest Bai Koroma and his APC are now thoroughly convinced that they will not win the upcoming elections in a free and fair contest. The fact is that the APC’s presidential candidate Samura Kamara is hugely unpopular and has failed to electrify the APC base.

The divisive and anti-democratic actions of the Koroma regime over the past ten years has led to the proliferation of splinter parties supported by urban youth in Freetown and across the North – areas usually known to be APC strongholds.  These opposition parties – the NGC, ADP, and C4C – will naturally split the potential APC vote.

On the other hand, in the traditional SLPP strongholds of the Southern and Eastern parts of the country, there is little possibility of a split vote despite financial inducements and political poaching by the incumbent party.

Thus, the most significant casualty in this electoral geometric will be the APC, leaving the SLPP to benefit.

SLPP victory is the most likely outcome of the elections whether one is willing to admit it or not.

The fact is the SLPP remains the largest opposition party in the country, both regarding numbers and its present organizational potential.

So by stoping Yumkellah, the APC is calculatingly hoping to reconsolidate its threatened votes. So Yumkellah, in essence, is just becoming a primary casualty of the APC’s grand-scheme of rigging the elections against SLPP and Maada Bio.

I will subsequently endeavor to provide a much more detailed and contextualized analysis of this situation in my next essay.

By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah