By Mohamed Kakay
Before the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Mrs. Linda Greenfield-Thimas arrived in Sierra Leone, a lot had been said about the purpose of her visit to the country.
Many opposition supporters and ordinary people suggested that she might not even have talks with President Bio because the United States didn’t recognize or congratulate President Bio after the 2023 Multi-tier elections. Also, the US government will call for a rerun of the 2023 elections.
During a press briefing in Freetown, a journalist asked the Ambassador whether the US would be looking forward to a rerun of the 2023 elections in Sierra Leone. The U.S. envoy said she wasn’t aware of any rerun and the US government isn’t pushing for it either.
And she didn’t stop at that, she also made available a mouthwatering sum of over 1 million dollars to the government to look into electoral reforms for future elections and not the past elections. Period!
Added to that, the Minister of Information and Communication, C. Bah, has made it categorically clear on air that the much-trumpeted tripartite negotiations have nothing to do with any rerun of the 2023 elections, and therefore the idea of any rerun of the elections is considered dead on arrival.
Meanwhile, despite all these reports about no rerun of the 2023 election from both the US Ambassador and the government through the information minister, some sections of the opposition APC party are still forcing this narrative of a rerun down the throats of their gullible supporters to believe that the tripartite negotiations will nullify 2023 elections and there is going to be a rerun election to be held in March 2024.
I saw members of the APC party sitting on the tripartite negotiations committee struggling to put some flesh into the mandate of the skeleton Committee which is standing on mosquito legs, but as my English teacher once said; energy wasted no work done.
For how long shall the opposition APC party wait to be told by who else that the issue of rerun of the 2023 elections is a no-go area at the tripartite negotiations? Until thy kingdom comes maybe.
But all is not lost for the opposition APC party because according to Political Commentators, one day in politics can change everything.
What the party should embark upon now moving forward, is to recuse themselves from the tripartite negotiations and focus all their efforts to try and bring peace and reconciliation within the party, if only they mean business.