By Abubakarr Bah
“There shall be a Vice-President of the Republic of Sierra Leone who shall be the Principal Assistant to the President in the discharge of his executive functions.” So says Section 54/1 of the 1991 constitution of Sierra Leone.
In addition to the obvious, this provision would also make one believe that in the absence of the President, the Vice-President, who incidentally was also elected alongside his boss, should carry out those functions the president would otherwise carry out. It also means that in the event of death or incapacitation the vice president takes over. This is standard practice in all presidential systems of government where a VP exists. But it would seem Sierra Leone is tinkering on the path of deviation and reinventing the wheel; thanks to the all-too-familiar rift between President Ernest Bai Koroma and his vice, Chief Samuel Sam-Sumana.
In the United States, for example, Barack Obama delegates some of his presidential functions to Joe Biden, and his VP takes over the administration of the White House whenever the president is on an international mission. Even in West Africa, including our neighbouring Liberia this is the constitutional provision.
In Ghana for instance there existed an amicable relationship between President John Atta Mills and his VP, John Mahama; and the demise of the former did not create any tussle and there was an easy and smooth transition as Mahama took the oath of office as President of Ghana. This is what a real democratic nation should strive for.
In Sierra Leone today, however, it is no secret that there is a serious rift between the country’s two top job holders; and the split is, to a great extent, undermining the development of Sierra Leone. I shall endeavour to explain shortly after giving a brief reminder about how the VP came into the political limelight.
Chief Abubakarr Sidikie Samuel Sam-Sumana came into political prominence during the 2007 elections that led to the defeat of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). As a perceptibly wealthy Kono man who had been based in the United States of America, Sumana’s good looks and supposed affluence were quick to make him influential within the APC hierarchy, a party that badly needed some financial injection. Koroma, the main opposition challenger, chose him as his running-mate. The relationship between the two men was very amicable during the first half of their first term of governance, as far as we knew. But things dramatically started changing as time wore on, and they approached the end of their first term. In fact, the re-appointment of Sam-Sumana as running-mate came as a surprise to many as it came amid acrimony between the two men, and speculation became rife that Koroma would ditch him because of “the allegations hanging over him”. Those allegations ranged from a criminal summon for him in Minnesota, USA, the Aljazeera undercover report on his alleged shenanigans, to his former business partners making a heap of mud-sticking revelations about him.
But in less than 48 hours to the closure of nominations for running-mates, Koroma announced Sam-Sumana as his 2012 running mate. The two men on most occasions rallied together the length and breadth of the country campaigning with footballs, and the inscription “the winning team” on some of their posters. But like the saying goes that politicians are most times insincere the comradeship, if it ever existed between the two men, ended immediately after their election victory on the 23rd November 2012. Some observers have said that when the two most powerful men in Sierra Leone attend functions they neither smile nor talk to each other like they should. I observed the same sour, perhaps bitter, relationship during the party’s 52nd anniversary celebrations at their headquarters in Freetown.
Back to the issue of the president and his vice, our constitution stipulates in Section 49/4 thus: “Whenever the President dies, resigns, retires or is removed from office…the vice president shall assume office as President for the unexpired term of the President with effect from the date of the death, resignation, retirement or removal of the President, as the case may be.” This provision is just too clear to warrant an explanation. It emphasises the significance of the office of the president.
But sour relationship between Koroma and Sumana has even got the attention of the clergy. Preaching recently during the 104th anniversary of the Western District Synod of Buxton Memorial Methodist Church in Freetown, Rev Arnold Archer-Cambell asked this rhetorical question: “How can a nation have a vice president that cannot represent his president or the country.” He went on: “How can we move forward (as a nation) when the two people that are leading us (President Ernest Bai Koroma and Vice President Samuel Sam Sumana) do not see eye-to-eye.”
Since the end of the 2012 elections in the country, we have witnessed a situation in which President Koroma executes almost all presidential functions and sometimes delegates some to either his Chief of Staff, Dr. Richard Konteh, the Foreign Minister, Dr Samura Kamara, one of his advisers Alhaji Ibrahim Ben Kargbo (his adviser) or his Special Executive Assistant (SEA), Dr Sylvia Blyden thus totally making the Vice President completely insignificant. Recently the foreign minister, not the vice president, represented Koroma at the United Nations General Assembly after he had reportedly been advised against travelling on medical grounds.
Close sources from the VP’s office have told me that the VP comes to his office and sits there the whole day doing nothing. Some APC stalwarts, apparently opposed to the VP, have argued that Sumana did not lead the UN delegation “to prevent him from being molested by his former business allies” I spoke about earlier, with whom he has fallen out. Agreed that was a reason for not travelling to New York, but was he not defended in that matter at the time by government and the APC to an extent that he was referred to as “a noble man” and that the allegations against him were baseless?
Besides if Sam-Sumana has “a bad record in the US” why did Koroma retain him last year as his running-mate? Serious as the VP’s inability to represent the country in the US may be, what about other national functions at which ministers and advisers have been representing the president? Or do you want to practically tell us that Sumana was merely used to win the Kono votes and then dumped immediately after the announcement of the results?
I strongly hold the view that the current rift between Koroma and Sumana is seriously undermining the development of the country. This is because the sour relationship between the two men has spilled over to the entire cabinet to an extent that it appears as if there is a latent cabinet divide along the lines of the two men. My close source at the VP’s office even suggests that the office is being monitored to know the ministers/deputies, parliamentarians or any public figures who go there. The leader of the United Democratic Movement (UDM), Mohamed Bangura, seen by many as “a surrogate politician” and a ventriloquist for the Koroma administration during the 2012 elections said this recently on Radio Democracy’s Good morning Salone programme: “President Koroma don turn State House to Court Barray for talk plaba between de minister dem en den deputy dem”. Loosely translated this means: “President Koroma has transformed State House into a court house to settle disputes between his ministers and their deputies.”
In fact, Bangura went on to blame the President for not sacking some of these ministers that are undermining his government, adding that ‘the president should be more focused on addressing serious issues rather than settling ministerial disputes at State House.” If such a statement would come from a perceived surrogate politician who throughout the electioneering period defended president Koroma and even withdrew from the race for him, and there has been no State House denial, then it leaves one to conclude that the allegations are true.
Every rational Sierra Leonean would agree that the sour relationship between the two most constitutionally powerful men in Sierra Leone is not only having serious implications within the APC, but also on the nation in general. Even if you have a contrary view to this, you would not deny the fact that both men have in the last six years become extremely wealthy and popular, and that if their rift is not resolved in the interest of the country the unresolved upheaval will rumble on to an extent that both men would, if not already, use their power and wealth to foster the divide which would affect the poor masses and the nation. Remember when two elephants fight the grass suffers.
No matter the situation, President Koroma should realise that he reappointed Sumana to serve him in his second term and it’s clear that he knew his number two man very well especially between 2007 and 2012. And if he lacked confidence in Chief Sam-Sumana he would not have renewed his appointment. It is safe to say that the president’s house seems divided and he should mend it now before it’s too late. abah2002@yahoo.com/ctnbah@gmail.com
(C) Politico 10/10/13
