Hit by news of ex-President Koroma’s departure from the main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC), a worried Sierra Leone People’s Party seems ready to go ahead with corruption trials against the former President.

It still remains unclear why SLPP becomes nervous and panic-stricken about Koroma’s intention to step down from a party he has led for over 20 years.

Experienced politicians within the APC intimated this press that SLPP was highly comfortable with the former President as APC Chairman and Leader owing to his claim and composure. It is no gainsaying that President Koroma is full of the milk of human kindness, and no doubt, SLPP are satisfied with him.

Former President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma

He does not return fire for fire to SLPP’s threats and brutality as he believes that peace must be allowed to reign in Sierra Leone, a country that has tasted the brutality of an 11-year civil war.

When Koroma’s ministers were arrested and detained on false claims and frivolous charges, the former President maintained his peace. When Koroma was humiliated and provoked at Lungi International airport when returning home from one his overseas trips, he also remained unruffled.

When a roadblock was mounted at the frontage of his residence in the north-eastern capital of Makeni, the former President held his peace. When his fellow compatriots in his hometown were massacred by police and military officers over the relocation of an electricity generator, Koroma also put-up composure.

These attributes are rare in an influential African Politician making SLPP not wanting the former President to go. SLPP would also remember the former President in the peaceful manner in which he convinced APC to comport themselves when controversies on the appointment of the Chief Electoral Commissioner, Mohamed Kenewui Konneh arose months ago.

His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio

APC members were highly opposed to Konneh’s surreptitious appointment by President Julius Maada Bio to oversee the National Electoral Commission, a body responsible to conduct and supervise elections in Sierra Leone.

When former President Koroma spoke, everyone took his rightful position, and Konneh became safe in his seat. Observers in the media and the public have described SLPP’s stance on Koroma’s proposed departure as one of the greatest hypocrisies of the time. SLPP politicians have been calling on the ex-President to take his hands off party politics if he should be treated as a statesman.

In most of his speeches, President Julius Maada Bio has been urging the ex-President Koroma not to have anything to do with the politics of the land. He cited late President Ahmed Tejan Kabba as an example of those leaders who played statesmanship role after his tenure, and thus enjoyed the respect and privileges of a former President.

While in Kambia few days ago, President Bio warned the former President to comport himself as a statesman or else stop to respect him. Bio’s statesman has been re-echoed on several occasions by his followers in the PAOPA movement.

According to Nightwatch Newspaper, they have always perceived the former President as a big threat to SLPP whose success in next year’s elections remains a problem once the former President continues to stay in the party.