Information gathered by this Daybreak has it that there is a big shift in the opposition All People’s Congress (APC) party that many were expecting after the party’s poor showing at the concluded 24 June 2023 presidential and other elections.
The split has been blamed on the expected shift in the party after Dr Samura Kamara has tried twice and failed at winning the presidency of the state. According to our inside sources, some former and current MPs from the eastern province are agitating to see that the APC is resurrected from their past two disastrous showing at the 2018 and 2023 polls.
The party members revealed that there is at present intermittent waves of blaming and accusing people of either sabotaging the party’s chances or the chances of their flagbearer and his running mate, Dr Samura Kamara and Chernor Maju Bah respectively, so much so that the party failed to make the expected output at the recently concluded elections.
‘This is not healthy for the party. We can see that Dr Samura Kamara has done his bit, two times now. We cannot return back to Samura, even after we sort out the elections dispute. Going forward the party needs representation in the House and councils; we do not have the money to pay all the 52 MPs and councillors and mayors and their staff. This has caused serious setback as you can see Ayodele from Western Urban has joined Mohamed in Parliament. Who will be next?’ they asked rhetorically.
Meanwhile, this medium is reliably informed that the Sixth Parliament will soon see many of the APC members of Parliament that said they were forced and threatened into signing the party’s pact to stay out of parliament and the local councils.
‘What we know is that there are a lot of complaints. The complaints are coming from people that are in support of Chief Sam Sumana taking over the party. The split is not only expected to affect the overall leadership of the party, it will also affect who gets the party’s symbols going forward. The APC needs a strong man going forward and that person is Chief Sam Sumana. It should have been him and Dr Samura in that order had the party not been bamboozled into repeating 2018. Well, we still saw a repeat at the polls just as in 2018. We have to move forward and see how we can change things for 2028, ’ some of the party’s ranking members told this medium.
Daybreak was told that many of the MPs and councillors elect have been complaining about wanting to head to parliament to provide representation for their people.
‘We won the elections to serve our people. Many of us spent huge sums of money and plenty of us borrowed money or even sold our properties and businesses. As a party the APC executive under Dr Samura was very slow. They left everything to chance, even how they manipulated the sidelining of Chief Sam Sumana. Look at how long ago President Bio announced the elections date. Look at how we were busy running back and forth to court instead of campaigning. Nothing was done to time and taste, and this is the reason we lost. The party is being remote controlled from Bombali. This is going to change. It will only be so if we all get back to the House and councils,’ said another MP that signed the APC boycott pact.