Makeni, the northern region headquarter city where former President Ernest Bai Koroma resides in retirement will today be painted red by members and supporters of the main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) party, as reports indicate that all the hotels, guest houses and residences in the city are brimming full.

The planned gathering is to besiege the former president who is the party’s Chairman and Leader to stay on and continue to provide leadership for the party going into next year’s national elections.

This reportedly has placed Ernest Who is said to have expressed his wish to retire from active party politics; in a dilemma.

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Currently, since his retirement, the former President has been engaged I series of diplomatic assignments as he is seen and held in high esteem by the African Union as an elder statesman.

It could be recalled that after his two terms as president ended in April 2018, Ernest took a well-deserved vacation that lasted about four months. After his return from Guinea, Conakry, he was greeted by a huge crowd of APC members and supporters in Makeni where he openly said he had done his work for both country and party and wanted to retire from active politics.

The stage would have been set for his retirement form active party politics at Port Loko in January 2020 where the party was to hold a national delegates conference to validate its revised 1995 Constitution that would have cleared the way for the holding of lower-level elections leading to the election of a new national executive.

However, the convention was aborted at the last minute by a high court injunction filed against the party and its leadership by the National Reformation Movement (NRM) stating that the convention was illegal because the delegates were not constitutionally constituted.

With the party now having gone through all the processes for having a new constitution which was adopted on March 26th, 2022, the way has been paved for the election of a new APC national executive body.

According to The Exclusive Newspaper, at a meeting in Makeni with senior party members early this year, Ernest reiterated his wish to retire form party politics. He maintained that he was tired and would like to see leadership of the party transferred to a new generation of leaders. He stated that he will give his blessings and support to these new leaders while calling for unity and oneness of purpose among party members and supporters.

However, APC members and supporters across the country, cognizant of the invaluable role Ernest played in not only leading the party to two consecutive election victories but also holding the party together after it lost power to the SLPP and directing it into remaking itself, want him to stay on; if not to lead the party as chairman or leader (the two positions having been separated), but to continue giving the party moral and financial support.