According to a detailed chronology published by Dr Sylvia Olayinka Blyden on her Facebook page, former Attorney General Joseph Fitzgerald Kamara’s claim that he came into office “after” the Sam Sumana ECOWAS Court case was concluded is not supported by the facts.

Kamara was appointed Attorney General and Minister of Justice on 28 December 2015, Blyden stated. Sam Sumana filed his ECOWAS Court case on 18 October 2016 – ten months later. The ECOWAS judgment was delivered in November 2017, two years into Kamara’s tenure.

“JFK was the Attorney General when our Law Officers Department was served with the ECOWAS Court papers filed by Sam Sumana. JFK was the Attorney General who took Sam Sumana’s ECOWAS case to us in Cabinet,” Blyden wrote on her Facebook page.

Blyden, who was Minister of Social Welfare at the time, said she participated in Cabinet discussions on the case. “I WAS THERE. I was in Cabinet. I saw the matter come before Cabinet. I took part in the discussions,” she stated.

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Blyden also criticised Kamara’s legal advice to ignore the ECOWAS Court proceedings, a move that has been repeatedly cited as a reason the government failed to properly defend the case.

The 2017 ECOWAS judgment found that Sierra Leone had violated Sam Sumana’s rights to a fair hearing and political participation, but the judges did not find that President Koroma’s constitutional power to remove the Vice President was unlawful.

On Pages 16-17 of the judgment, the ECOWAS judges explicitly recognised President Koroma’s “constitutional power and authority” to remove his Vice President if the VP was no longer a member of a political party. However, the court held that Koroma should have waited for the 30-day period within which Sam Sumana could appeal his expulsion from the APC.

Blyden noted that the ECOWAS Court’s ruling against the government was made possible largely because Kamara’s legal team failed to file a defence, leaving the due-process issue essentially uncontested. The government of Sierra Leone later formally rejected the ECOWAS ruling, arguing that the regional court lacked jurisdiction after the matter had already been determined by the Supreme Court.

Blyden has also offered Le200,000 to anyone who can produce a court judgment stating that the APC or former President Koroma violated the 1991 Constitution in removing Sam Sumana. She insists no such judgment exists.

“I will instantly give 200 Million Leones to anyone who produces a judgment either at the ECOWAS Court or the Sierra Leone Supreme Court saying APC or President Ernest Bai Koroma violated the 1991 Constitution on how to remove a VP,” she said.