By Umaru Fofana
On his swivel chair he sat. Swinging from right to left and from left to right. But he hardly moved. His ambition ended there. He fell off the chair. Metaphorically speaking. Trying to smile even though smile seemed far away from him. First he could not smile. Force he later did a smile. He seemed ensconced in the chair which had actually swallowed him up. With his diminutive stature, the colossal executive table made him look like a mouse in Jurassic Park. He sounded confident in the interview. But he looked anything but confident.
“What do you think about Charles Margai”, I asked him. Margai was the man who had broken away from his party to do all he could to defeat him. And so far so good. “He is a no-body” he said. “If you were here last year you would think he was the next president of this country. But [his momentum] has evaporated” he sought to assure me. I asked him what his chances were of winning the presidency just a few months away, he responded even before I could complete my question. “No run-off” he said. I smiled. I thought I had got the reading wrong. Few months later, it turned out he did get it wrong.
I am talking about Solomon Berewa. When I returned to Sierra Leone in 2006 to start work with the BBC I had my eyes firmly fixed on the elections that were to soon follow. I had strong convictions that then vice president Berewa, the governing SLPP party’s standard bearer would lose in his bid to succeed his boss. Not only because no vice president had ever become president in Sierra Leone and was unlikely to happen soon. Not only because of the advent of the People’s Movement Democratic Change, a splinter from Mr Berewa’s party. But also because he had long procrastinated naming his running-mate. Hence tongues were left wagging. Hence Macbethan ambitions took the best of many an SLPP politician.
At a Muslim rally at the National Stadium, the religious community showed how ungodly they could be. Like they do today for the incumbent, they openly endorsed the ruling SLPP party. Present were big von in the party and in government. From Alhaji UNS Jah who was party Chairman at the time, to Dr Bobson Sesay who was lands minister and one of those with vice-presidential ambitions. It was even being rumoured that the devoted Seventh Day Adventist was prepared to convert to Islam if only to fulfil the conventional convenience that I see no convenience in. If the standard-bearer is Christian the running-mate should be Muslim and vice versa.
And the list of those who wanted to become Berewa’s running-mate was long. Longer than the smoke which went up into the sky shortly after my interview with Berewa, as he went outside to puff some cigarette.
Kanja Sesay who was making good his stewardship at the National Commission for Social Action was one of them – perhaps Berewa’s favourite and the favourite of many others in and out of the party. But there was also Momodu Koroma the then foreign minister. And on and on and on.
After the interview and before he could bring out his cigarettes, I also asked Solomon Berewa whether he thought his delay in announcing a running-mate would not leave so much room for fevered speculation which might burn his political fingers. He shrugged it off saying it did not matter how close to the elections he made the announcement it would not impact his chances of winning. He was proved wrong. Ernest Koroma seems to be drifting into the same ditch.
When eventually Berewa announced Momodu Koroma as his running-mate, it was obvious he had been forced on him. There was an interesting plan, a source would later tell me. With Momodu, an ancestral northerner as VP he would be the flag-bearer in 2012 because Berewa would only be a one-term president. Now, in the 2012 contest, Jacob Jusu Saffa, a southerner and would-be finance minister in a Berewa-led cabinet was to be Momodu’s running mate. Isata Jabbie (IJ) later Mrs Kabbah, was to become Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs for which reason she had gone to do a graduate course in the relevant area. Emmanuel Gaima a development specialist was to have become Minister of Development and Economic Planning, the source said.
When I asked JJ Saffa in the course of writing this article, he attempted to be modest and said “I did not know about that”. But he fell short of denying that it was being touted. “I wish it had come true” he later said, when I pressed him further. Such was how far way the plan stretched to, I understand, that IJ was to later become a presidential running-mate.
When eventually Berewa announced his running-mate, it seemed the genie was still in the bottle for those who had prepared the 15 years succession plan. But it was in fact too late and the genie was out of the bottle. Then the edges started to fray. And the needle to the zigzag sewing machine broke. The tailor was soon to be sacked.
Those who had lost out in the contest to become vice president became laid back. Some wishing and praying for a defeat for the SLPP. Berewa was largely left on his own and those who lost out on the number two position deserted him. The Bobson Sesay fanatics especially from his native north, became disappointed. So did supporters of the other running-mate hopefuls. A good number of them vowed to vote for the opposition APC party. Who knows, in a contest that proved so keen, many of those voters would not have become disgruntled if the hopes of their pay masters had not been raised and sustained and then dashed. And Berewa could be president today.
But even though the announcement by Berewa of his running mate was delayed, it was still made earlier than the opposition leader’s. Ernest Koroma announced his much later. But just who cared then about that anyway.
The list of those who want to become Koroma’s running-mate is pretty long. And more names seem to be being added to it almost daily. Early this week the telecoms engineer Joe Amara Bangalie seemed to be topping the chat which includes hits by two former SLPP presidential aspirants Usu Boie and Dr Ritchard Mbayoh, internal affairs minister Musa Tarawallie, Chernor Maju aka Cherikoko, MP, and the list goes on. It was even rumoured that he had been named.
But the incumbent Samuel Sam-Sumana still sounds confident that he will be retained. Like Berewa when I met him for that interview, Sam-Sumana may sound confident but he does not look so. Like Bobson Sesay, Sam-Sumana’s supporters are baying for political blood should he be dropped. But unlike Momodu Koroma who apparently had the backing of the Arab world even if the West did not warm up to him, Sam-Sumana has no-one in the international community that warms up to him owing to allegations of shenanigans against him.
Behind that podium he stood. Defend himself he attempted to. Like throwing water on a duck’s back, succeed he could not. His agony seems to be coming from both within and without his party. From within they believe were he to be made the running-mate, again, he would aim for the presidency in five year. Assuming his ticket does win. Like the SLPP and their 2007 agenda, many people have positioned themselves and prepared a 15-year succession plan after Koroma. They want an old man to be the next vice presidential candidate whose ambition will only stop at that. And maintain the tradition of no presidential candidate ever having run with the same person on the same ticket for more than once and no VP ever having succeeded his boss.
And I have started hearing the name of Ibrahim Ben Kargbo. He will be around 70 years in 2017. But like the plan by the SLPP caucus was disrupted by, among other things, a delay in announcing a running-mate, who knows, Koroma may just allow history to repeat itself should he fail to name his choice in the next one week. His, I suppose, is even closer to voting day than Berewa’s was. Let us say the cases are a bit different. Berewa did not have an incumbent VP to ditch. A tough thing to do. But Kabbah did have one in 2002 and ditch he did Dr Albert Joe Demby long before the elections...shortly after the party’s Bo convention. All in the president’s interest to name his choice now. Procrastination is a thief of time. Or he will swing on a swivel chair and then fall off it.
(c) Politico 30/08/12
