By Mabinty M. Kamara
The main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) has kicked against condemnations of its members over the October 8 incident in Makeni around the resident of its leader and chairman, Ernest Bai Koroma.
Supporters of Koroma were involved in a standoff with agents of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) who had gone to interview the former president over suspected involvement is corruption. The anti-graft agency said the conduct of Koroma’s supporters prevented its agents from questioning him.
The incident which happened at the backdrop of rising political tension in the country, attracted condemnations from several institutions, both government and civil society.
But the APC said the condemnations were one sided and done hastily.
“The APC is particularly dismayed by the fact that these institutions are overly selective in their condemnation of acts in the current state of affairs in Sierra Leone,” the party said in the statement signed by its National Secretary General, Osman Foday Yansaneh.
It however hastily added that it’s detest every act of lawlessness and every threat to the peace and stability which the party had maintained throughout its tenure in government.
Koroma and his handlers have consistently claimed that he’s been targeted for a smear campaign and that the just-concluded Commissions of Inquiry and the subsequent Government White Paper failed to follow due processes.
This position of the party was again reiterated in its statement.
“Since this government entered State House, our party officials and supporters have become the object of countless incidences of oppression, incarceration, killing and trumped-up legal charges. As a political party, we have made several petitions to the Supreme Court on issues ranging from elections to the conduct of the Commissions of Inquiry, but all of them were discountenance with criminal arrogance,” the statement reads in part.
It went on: “Yet none of the institutions bothered to denounce this as a recipe for chaos. The government on several instances has used both police and military forces to stifle peaceful protests of citizens, and in most cases live rounds of ammunition were fired at unarmed civilians. Many have died and many more injured by this show of brute force by state security personnel.”
The APC cited the case of former defense minister, Alfred Palo Conte, as example of the ongoing harassment and embarrassment its senior members were going through in the hands of the Bio administration.
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