Sierra Leone Telegraph: 22 January 2017
The radical progressive nationalist and SLPP presidential aspirant, Alie Badara Sanjan Kabba (Photo) is today on his way home from the USA, with an unwavering commitment to re-engage SLPP stakeholders in a renewed push to achieve lasting peace and unity in the party.
Alie Kabba has consistently expressed strong concerns about the deepening crisis in the party, which is now generally considered to be at its most perilous state.
In an interview enroute to Sierra Leone this morning, Alie Kabba told the editor of the Sierra Leone Telegraph Abdul Rashid Thomas, that he will be calling on all SLPP party grassroots supporters of flagbearer aspirants across the country, to form Peace and Unity Brigades (PUB) as a platform for mass mobilisation and promotion of internal party harmony at all levels.
“Grassroots supporters must rise above divisive personality-centred politics and embrace the common foundation of what is good for the party and country,” said Alie Kabba.
He emphasized that it is the responsibility of the grassroots membership “to hold party leadership collectively accountable for ongoing problems, including the perennial failure to positively position the party in strategic ways that will enhance national electability”.
Like many true party loyalists, Alie Kabba did not shy away from expressing his utter exasperation at the crippling inability to prevent the party from being stuck in what he described as “the drag-down and suck-in mud of incessant personality squabble and counterproductive actions”.
Alie Kabba firmly decried the futility of fighting each other in the party, instead of focusing energies on how to defeat APC and take SLPP back to State House in February 2018.
“SLPP must urgently end internal feuding and quickly heal self-inflicted wounds”, he re-emphasized, stressing:”There are no winners in selfish divisions and acrid acrimony. We are all losers when we fail to see merit in collective victory”.
On the question of how he hopes to achieve the elusive party unity, Alie told Abdul Rashid Thomas this morning that “unity will have to come from the bottom up – not top down, because those at the top have failed to deliver us from internecine conflict”.
He maintained that he is a strong believer in the power of ordinary party members to apply needed pressure on those at the top, which will compel the rest to work towards lasting peace and unity.
“It is time to move from who is right or wrong, or which side you are on, to how we can bring everyone on board, leaving no one out,” said Alie Kabba. (Photo: Alie Kabba – right, on a peace building platform with Julius Maada Bio who is also contending for the party’s presidential candidacy).
“It is naive to count on anyone in the ruling APC government to deliver peace and unity for us in the SLPP,” he underscored.
In his characteristic approach as an activist and a unifier, Alie Kabba called on fellow SLPP party stalwarts to “roll up our sleeves and work selflessly in pursuit of an all-inclusive solution to our current internal challenges, for peace and unity will not fall from the sky; and, above all, we must resist the easy temptation to throw the baby out with the bathwater in frustration or anger at each other. We are all branches of the same mighty tree – SLPP!”
As Alie Kabba returns to Sierra Leone today, after a long visit to the USA where he met with politicians and potential investors for Sierra Leone’s ailing economy, there are still unanswered questions about the dates for the 2018 presidential, general and local elections. (Photo: President Koroma and members of his party’s inner circle).
President Koroma and his ruling APC are keeping tight-lipped as they prepare for a turbulent and blood-letting national party conference in a few months, where their presidential candidate for 2018 will be announced.
Meanwhile, the country’s main opposition SLPP is working hard to mend bridges and heal the wounds of years of brutal infighting for the heart and soul of the party.
Presidential hopeful Alie Kabba, is confident that he can act as a bridge for peace and unity in the party. He is scheduled to arrive later tonight in Sierra Leone, when work to mend those broken bridges begins in earnest.
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