The Eastern District of Kono stands out for its support to the personal influences of a single person. Alhaji Chief Samuel Samsumana was one time Vice President who was unceremoniously dismissed from office. He has since aged a campaign of calumny against the President who made the penultimate decision to replace him after the Supreme Court decided that his membership of a political party was a continuous condition of him being a Vice President and therefore since he lost his status as a member of the All Peoples Congress Party, he fails to meet that condition to remain as Vice President and pari passu accepted his replacement as Vice President by Victor Foh as a legitimate act under the President’s exercise of his Executive Authority. In the event, Alhaji Samuel Samsumana came back to contest these elections after having formed his political party but focused his attention on the Kono District where he eventually has now won seven out of the nine seats contested there for Parliament, he is reputed to have also won the local Council and Mayor of Koidu Town to go with his other successes. In this vein, his party becomes the third largest political Party in Parliament even though he scored less votes nationally than the National Grand Coalition, (NGC).

Interestingly, the National Grand Coalition (NGC) campaigned on a tribally neutral platform of “Country first” but suffered the biggest blow because of this. They failed to win control of any major tribe or region except for one seat in Parliament won in the tribal home town of the Party’s leader Dr Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella and also the District Council Chairmanship in Kambia District. Their call for unity among tribes and regions to seek change from the two dominant political domains proved to have fallen on deaf ears particularly in the South and East of the Country where the voting was seriously tribal and clannish. The failure of the NGC to penetrate these areas have undermined their claim to be a Party of national unity.

While the votes were largely spread in the Western Area what was observed in both Western Rural and Western Rural were a clear Creole apathy and a vexed people who decided to vote with their feet in protest against the seeming lack of Creole candidates in many of their own communities which they felt belonged to them. In the event, Creole, candidates who would have easily won under the APC were successful when standing under the SLPP because the Creoles simply followed their own kith to whichever Party gave them a chance to stand for elective office. In this regard, the SLPP was able to penetrate areas in the APC strongholds of the Western Area, both rural and urban because many were against the candidates fielded by the APC and particularly because these candidates were not Creoles or had much affinity with the Creoles in those areas. The fact also that the NGC appealed to many Creoles because they preached a political of tribal neutrality contributed to the loss of votes for the APC in the Western Rural and Urban Areas as well.

The APC rank and file have stood solidly behind Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara and they continue to have his full assurances of his commitment to helping them get out of poverty through wealth creation and enhancing the life chances of the people. He has pledged to govern for the grassroots and on that promise he continues to rest his campaign. What many believe is that the messaging should now shift to a focus of the priority to make this campaign a matter of personal comparison of him who has done so much to take this country to where it is today in the last twenty or more years against another who has done nothing but wait to take over power in the same period. All in all, Dr Samura Kamara is a batter person to lead Sierra Leone. The shock of a first round inconclusive result is now well and truly over. Let the APC and Dr Samura Kamara concentrate on the Western Area and the North to take the message of APC resurgence and a consolidation of our hold on power. To allow this former Military junta to take over power again would be a catastrophe for this country.