After nine consecutive years of leadership role in the SLPP in Holland, the Chairman of the SLPP Holland Branch, Mr Vandi Alieu Mansaray has on November 30,2024 resigned after successfully running only one and the first ever elected tenure in the SLPP in Holland.
Prior to his election on February 22,2020, Chairman Vandi first served the party at a regional level as Secretary General to the SLPP Continental Europe for a brief period of two years. Following the unfortunate departure of Continental Europe’s Chairman to the NGC and the subsequent collapse of the regional body, Chairman Vandi and six other party diehard then converged in Eindhoven ( south of Holland ) to form the SLPP Holland Branch on November 17,2017.A month later on December 17th that year, Chairman Vandi Alieu Mansaray was unanimously entrusted with the role of Interim Secretary General. Under him as Interim Secretary General, the branch was officially registered on 18th December 2018.
Under his leadership as the first elected Chairman, the branch sent a consignment of 150 ( one hundred and fifty ) bags of rice to the party’s National Headquarters at Wallace Johnson Street in June 2020 (just four months after his election in February that year) which consignment was received by Madam Martha Kanagbo ( now Ambassador to The Gambia) and Honourable Manso Dumbuya ( Freetown Western Regional Chairman ).In a show of great regard for “gender equality”, Chairman Vandi brought with him four female delegates (including the youngest delegate) to the party’s National Delegates Conference of December 29-30 2021 in Bo, where the Chairman and over a thousand other electors gathered to choose His Excellency Julus Maada Bio as the party’s flagbearer for the 2023 National polls.
Under Chairman Vandi, the SLPP Holland Branch and three other diaspora party structures (the SLPPNA, The SLPP UK&I and the SLPP Canada) organized a successful 2023 campaign fundraiser at the Kona Lodge in Freetown on December 28,2022 (with proceeds thereof entrusted directly to the First Lady, Mrs Fatima Maada Bio. In addition to organizing and hosting incessant peace talks both here in Holland and in countries across Europe, Chairman Vandi has always been either an architect of or a key player in every event held here in Holland in the name of the SLPP including the hosting of Dr Jonathan Sandy in February 2015,Dr Alie Kabba in April 2015,Ambassador Bund Wurie at the Hub in Eindhoven in 2015,the Victory Parade of April 2018,the Koln, Germany Peace talks of February 26,2019,the Joint Peace Initiative of May 25,2019 at the Sierra Leone embassy in Brussels and a countless lot more.
Chairman Vandi’s resignation is in keeping with promises made on his election day, February 22,2020 -that to imitate the late Nelson Mandela who ran only one tenure, despite being behind bars for 27 years in his bid to ward the apartheid off South Africa. “Politics is like local farming”, where an unfortunate local farmer may do everything on time at the height of the farming season including to brush his farm, cut the trees, burn his farm, plough and fence his farm to protect his labour and yet there is poor harvest. The outspoken Chairman further asserted,” it makes no sense to trace the last three R’s in politics.
