As Sierra Leoneans warm up for the grand run-off polls to determine who between Ernest Koroma (APC) and Solomon Berewa (SLPP) would succeed Tejan Kabbah, it is becoming increasingly clear that the voting pattern would not significantly depart from the two main issues of change and continuity that we saw in the first round on August 11 despite attempts by some ill-conceived charlatans who are busy desperately fanning the flames of tribalism and regionalism to explain it. I think it is a mistake to see allegiance or leaning to the APC and SLPP front-runners reflected in the first round simply in tribal or regional terms.

In the first place, the founding fathers of the SLPP, including its first leader and prime minister Sir Milton Margai, never conceived of it as a Mende or South-Eastern party but rather as a national party glaringly epitomised in its trade-mark motto ‘one country, one people'. In fact it was this united front led by more northern and western elites than those of the south-east that facilitated the granting of the country's independence in 1961. The SLPP was only projected as a mende and largely south-eastern party in the count down to the historic 1967 General Elections, which the APC led by Siaka Stevens won with a very slim margin. Most political observers at the time openly agreed that this was to blame for the poor showing of the SLPP then under the leadership of Sir Albert Margai, father of PMDC leader Charles Margai.  What an irony! That the latter was bold enough to back off a party that was once led by his father to lend support to a candidate of a party that was in fact responsible for his father's political demise should, in my view, be seen more in terms of bridging the tribal and regional divide that was becoming evident, and perhaps in a marginal way in terms of the yearnings for change reflected in the largely rejection vote delivered against the incumbent candidate in the first round, than trying to settle scores with the old guard of the party for denying him the SLPP leadership three times in a row. Charles Margai would be remembered for bravely correcting the mistakes of his father in opting for national unity and respecting the views of majority of Sierra Leoneans clamouring for a change for the better over and above his tribal and regional sentiments.

Loads of parallels can be drawn from the founding of the SLPP and the APC. The APC was in fact an off-shoot of the SLPP since its founder Siaka Stevens had to break away when he refused to sign the 1961 constitution that was to lead the country to independence arguing that its republican status must first have to come with it.  He later formed the Peoples National Party (PNP) together with the likes of Albert Margai, which he later changed to the APC. Political commentators then alluded to Siaka's Steven Machiavellian style of politics largely helped by his claim of Northern (limba) and Southern parentage (mende) to explain his success in negotiating the delicate tribal and regional imbalance that he inherited following his restoration to power from exile in Guinea where he had sojourned during the military interregnum.

However, Shaki as he was popularly called, reverted to introducing a kleptocratic one-party, a roadmap he had hitherto kicked against when it was about to be introduced by Albert Margai. Shaki's Machiavellian tactic then came to the fore as he lured SLPP heavyweights like Salia Jusu-Sheriff and Francis Minnah into lucrative ministerial positions thus laying the foundation for the marriage of convenience between the two rival parties. Joe Amara Bangalie, Dr Joe Jackson and JB Dauda later came on board; in fact under Momoh's presidency, both Minah and JB Dauda served as second vice Presidents, which made them act as president whenever Momoh was away. So why blame Margai for pitching tent with the APC in the name of national unity when he was not the first, and perhaps last to do so. While Shaki, who identified himself as both a Northerner (Limba) and Southerner (Mende), had SI Koroma (Temne) and Kamara Taylor (Limba) as first and second vice presidents respectively, Momoh, a northerner (limba) had Dr Abdulai Conteh (Susu) and Minah (Mende) and later JB Dauda (Mende) as first and second vps. 

And so we can see that the APC, like the SLPP, has always been a national party. The only problem was that the one-party state suppressed dissent in all its form, a reason which was advanced together with corruption and youth exclusion from the riches of the country to explain Sankoh's bloody war. In truth tribalism and regionalism rarely featured to explain Sankoh's war although fingers have been pointed at old guard politicians as key behind-the-scenes actors. The timing of Sankoh's war in 1991 was however far less appropriate as by then Momoh had,  following pressure from within and without, succumbed to pressure to introduce multi-party democracy, a process which was in fact well under way before the first shot that signalled the beginning of the war.

Perhaps the difference between the two can be seen in the manner in which they were able to cope with the challenges of their time. Corruption and mismanagement did of course exist under APC rule but it is clear that conscious efforts were made by some radical APC ministers such as Akibo Betts to expose voucher gate and squandergate scandals in which many heads were forced to roll. And of course the media played a very important role in this.  And all this happened when there was nothing like an Anti-Corruption Commission. SLPP under Kabbah was blessed, thanks to funding from British DFID, with the ACC, but unfortunately lacked the political will to allow it to operate autonomously with the full co-operation of the judiciary. At least cases of blatant interference into the operations of this commission by Kabbah and his top cronies have been reported in the media.

Another obvious difference is the fact that with all the socio-economic problems that people were grappling with under the APC, things never got worse to the extent of making people go without the basic necessities of life such as water, electricity, good roads, good health care etc, affordable food etc for protracted periods of time and thus making Sierra Leone reduced to last and later last but one in the UN Human Development Index for almost a decade such as we have witnessed under SLPP Tejan Kabbah style.

I am therefore urging all Sierra Leoneans not to vote on tribal, religious or regional sentiments but to do so based purely on issues of change or continuity, the former if they feel that they have been worse off under Kabbah/Berewa and therefore want to see their back by electing a new face in the person of Ernest Koroma of the APC or the latter if they think that they have been better off under the Kabbah/Berewa leadership and would therefore like to see Berewa continue.