PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
Sierra Leone: Opposition SLPP slams ruling APC for expelling VP
Freetown, Sierra Leone (PANA) - Main Opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) has slammed the government and the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) for expelling Vice President Alhaji Samuel Sam Sumana from the APC, saying that the measure was capable of rolling back the democratic gains this nation has scored since the end of the civil war in 2002.
In a press statement, issued here Monday and signed by Sulaiman Banja Tejan-Sie, the National Secretary General, the SLPP said it would place on records "our total and unambiguous concern at the ugly and unprecedented political drama the APC staged on Friday, 6 March, 2015.
PANA recalls that at a press conference held at their Party Headquarters in Freetown, the APC said it was expelling the sitting Vice President following the findings of an investigative panel.
It said that the Vice President was guilty of deceit, false statements amounting to fraud, inciting hatred, threatening the personal security of key party functionaries, flouting the rulings and decisions of the party, carrying out anti-party propaganda and engaging in activities inconsistent with the party's objectives.
On a radio programme on AYV radio that evening, the APC said the panel found out that the credentials on which Vice President Sam Sumana was placed on their Presidential ticket in the 2007 and 2012 elections were fraudulent.
It also asserted that Chief Sam Sumana lied about his education and religion, accusing the Vice President of responsibility for the numerous acts of mindless political violence that elements within the APC have visited on people, including SLPP supporters in the Kono district.
It said while the SLPP has no intention of dabbling into the internal affairs of the APC, "we may wish to raise some salient question -- Was the leadership of the APC not aware of all these acts of deceit, violence and insubordination? Why only now, seven years after the alleged incidents? We believe that the expulsion of the Vice President from the ruling party is not only malicious and anti democratic, but it also stands the real risk of plunging our nation into a needless constitutional crisis, even at a time when the nation is slowly recovering from the debilitating scourge of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).
"We also totally decry the manner in which the Vice President was expelled from the ruling party at a time when he is in self-quarantine as a result of one of his bodyguards’ alleged death from the virus."
-0- PANA BSA/VAO 9March2015
In a press statement, issued here Monday and signed by Sulaiman Banja Tejan-Sie, the National Secretary General, the SLPP said it would place on records "our total and unambiguous concern at the ugly and unprecedented political drama the APC staged on Friday, 6 March, 2015.
PANA recalls that at a press conference held at their Party Headquarters in Freetown, the APC said it was expelling the sitting Vice President following the findings of an investigative panel.
It said that the Vice President was guilty of deceit, false statements amounting to fraud, inciting hatred, threatening the personal security of key party functionaries, flouting the rulings and decisions of the party, carrying out anti-party propaganda and engaging in activities inconsistent with the party's objectives.
On a radio programme on AYV radio that evening, the APC said the panel found out that the credentials on which Vice President Sam Sumana was placed on their Presidential ticket in the 2007 and 2012 elections were fraudulent.
It also asserted that Chief Sam Sumana lied about his education and religion, accusing the Vice President of responsibility for the numerous acts of mindless political violence that elements within the APC have visited on people, including SLPP supporters in the Kono district.
It said while the SLPP has no intention of dabbling into the internal affairs of the APC, "we may wish to raise some salient question -- Was the leadership of the APC not aware of all these acts of deceit, violence and insubordination? Why only now, seven years after the alleged incidents? We believe that the expulsion of the Vice President from the ruling party is not only malicious and anti democratic, but it also stands the real risk of plunging our nation into a needless constitutional crisis, even at a time when the nation is slowly recovering from the debilitating scourge of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).
"We also totally decry the manner in which the Vice President was expelled from the ruling party at a time when he is in self-quarantine as a result of one of his bodyguards’ alleged death from the virus."
-0- PANA BSA/VAO 9March2015
