Traditional Rulers in Kono District’s Gbense Chiefdom including the Acting Paramount Chief, Aiah M. Kamanda, the Acting Chiefdom Speaker, Sahr Gbondo, the Chiefdom Mammy Queen, Finda Sinah, the Chiefdom Administrator, Pa Daramy, the Chiefdom Youth Chairman, Aiah Joseph Mbayoh, have unanimously accepted and endorsed all the listed candidates of the SLPP in Kono District and have equally endorsed the second term bid of President Julius Maada Bio.
These senior traditional authorities were also joined by five of their Section Chiefs including Sub Chiefs at a ceremony held at the Gbense Chiefdom Administrative Headquarters in Koidu City.
The candidates were presented to these Chiefdom authorities by the charismatic Kono District SLPP Chairman, Safea Leslie Moiwa, who made a brief but breathtaking recollection of some of the “game changer socio-economic development programmes of the SLPP and President Bio in Kono District to include the initiative to give Kono District a University to correct over 60 years of social injustice against Kono District and its sons and daughters; the construction of the 78-kilometre road to the Guinea border to open up the district to international trade, the construction of a Maternal Center of Excellence and the installation of an electricity grid that has ensured 24 hours electricity supply to Koidu City and its immediate surroundings in the immediate term.
Chairman Moiwa described the move by his SLPP and President as “a tip of the iceberg” and assured his country-people that the next Maada Bio administration, “will embarrass the Kono people with tangible and life-changing socioeconomic development programmes”, not only for the immediate benefit of the people but that they will be long-standing and generational.
Also present were Amb. Mbaimba Baryoh, Dr Robert Moigua, Elder Sahr Sundu, Former SLPP Chairman, Alhaji M.A.T. Foday and Mr. Mohamed Jabbie, among several other Kono dignitaries.
Chairman of the ceremony, Acting PC; A.M. Kamanda took time to outline the barrage of reasons, which he maintained, “are their collective rationale” for endorsing President Bio’s second term bid and that these also include “the special respect” he has demonstrated for the people of Kono District.
“For the past five years President Bio as our son-in-law showed us maximum respect and did not at any point-in-time show disrespect to us, or caused us to be molested, harassed or intimidated,” Chief Kamanda pointed out.
Amb. Mbaimba Baryoh
took turns to outline the numerous successes President Bio and his Government have registered to accord Sierra Leone the respect and viability it needs to do business with multilateral and other lending institutions across the world.
He maintained that these successes have not only guaranteed Sierra Leone’s viability but that they have restored to the country the dignified respect it deserves as a sovereign country among the community of nations of the world.
He mentioned the compact state the country has reached in the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the United States of America, the repeal of the seditious criminal libel law, the abolition of the death penalty, the enactment of the GEWE Act, and the Free Quality Education, a key component of President Bio’s human capital development agenda, which among other policies, targeted school entry and school retention of pupils.
The SLPP Constituency Campaign Chairman, Musa Quima, also unravelled the successes of the Government and his willingness to wholeheartedly work in the interest of the Party. He described Hon. Emerson Lamina, who tops the Kono District SLPP Block List, as his elder brother for whom he has much admiration and holds in high esteem.
In his remarks, Mayor Komba Matthew Sam asserted that former President Ernest Bai Koroma and Mr Charles Francis Margai were the key players in the betrayal of former Vice President, Chief Samuel Sam Sumana and the people of Kono.
He, therefore, warned the people of Kono not to countenance the APC-PMDC merger, describing it as “a merger of deceptionists and betrayers” and called on them to vote for the SLPP.
Hitting the penultimate nail in the coffin of APC and PMDC, Hon. Saa Emerson Lamina reminded his authorities how Dr Samura Kamara has insulted the collective dignity and esteem of the people of Kono by equating the whole of Kono District and its unique people and culture to small chiefdoms like Sanda-Tanderen and Gbonkolonken.
According to Hon. Lamina, that analogy by Dr. Samura Kamara was “misplaced and unfortunate” and it is a clear indication of how he intends to trivialize the issue of Kono District and its people if the APC party wins and he becomes President.
On Charles Francis Margai, Hon. Lamina equated him to the dying horse ‘Boxer’ in George Orwell’s political satire, “Animal Farm” who haven being overused by the shrewd pigs on the farm and has noticed his shrinking power to work and was sickening, decided to sell him to the knackers at least to gain some benefit rather than leaving him in the farm to die. “Mr Margai is in a political wilderness fumbling out a way for his political survival as he is on his way to political extinction. He is, like George Orwell’s horse, Boxer, making his last political manoeuvring even as he is politically phasing in order to attach some modicum of political significance to his name,” Hon. Lamina lashed out.
He joked, that Mr Margai could not afford to issue a single Councilor symbol in his home district, Moyamba, because that party is defunct, but he is out shouting about forming a meaningless coalition with some Kono people. He encouraged his kith and kin to discountenance Mr Margai and his “balloon breeze” and consider voting for the SLPP President, Members of Parliament, the Mayor, the District Council Chairman and Councilors as a way of repositioning Kono District on the right side of socioeconomic development in the 21st Century. Rev. Moses Tumbay introduced the dignitaries of the SLPP in grand style.
The ceremony at its conclusion was spiced with a scintillating SLPP song by the recently United Kono Artists Union reunited under the aegis of Hon. Emerson Lamina.