There comes a moment in the life of every political party when it must choose between convenience and principle, between the expedient path and the righteous one, between the politics of personal vendetta and the sacred covenant of constitutional order. For the All People’s Congress, that moment has arrived. It stands at the crossroads wrapped in the official seal of the Political Parties Registration Commission, and the signpost points in only one direction: toward justice.

Let us speak of what has happened, for what has happened matters not only to those who carry APC membership cards in their wallets but to every Sierra Leonean who believes that rules should mean something, that words written into constitutions should carry weight, and that powerful men should not be permitted to rewrite history simply because they find history inconvenient.

The PPRC has ruled. And in ruling, it has illuminated a path through a wilderness of confusion, manipulation, and what can only be described as institutional bad faith.

Picture the scene: September 8, 2020. The world is gripped by a pandemic that has forced humanity to reimagine how it conducts its most basic affairs. In Sierra Leone, as in nations across the globe, emergency governance protocols have been activated. The National Advisory Committee of the APC, constituted in accordance with the party’s own rules for precisely such extraordinary circumstances, convenes and makes a decision. Samuel Sam Sumana, once expelled, is readmitted into the party. The process is proper. The authority is legitimate. The decision is final.

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Or so one would think in a nation governed by laws rather than whims.

What followed that September day constitutes a case study in how political machinery can be weaponized against individuals when those controlling the levers of power decide that rules apply only when convenient. Senior party officials, names that echo through the corridors of APC power, looked upon the NAC decision and found it wanting. Not because it was illegal. Not because it violated procedure. But because it produced an outcome they did not desire.

And so they began to create obstacles that had never existed.

They invented conditions that the NAC had never approved. They demanded genuflections that no party constitution required. They treated a lawfully readmitted member as a supplicant begging for favor rather than a citizen exercising his constitutional right to political association. And when 2023 arrived and the prospect of electoral competition loomed, they reached into their bag of procedural tricks and produced a disqualification so devoid of explanation that it insulted the intelligence of every Sierra Leonean who witnessed it.

The PPRC has now named this behavior for what it is: bad faith.

Let those words settle into your consciousness, fellow citizens. Bad faith. The regulatory body charged with ensuring that political parties operate within the bounds of law and decency has examined the conduct of senior APC officials and concluded that they acted in bad faith. They knew the rules. They knew the proper procedures. They chose to ignore them anyway, gambling that power would shield them from accountability.

That gamble has failed.

But let us delve deeper, for the PPRC ruling addresses more than the fate of one man. It speaks to fundamental principles that should concern every Sierra Leonean who dreams of a nation where the mighty cannot simply crush the inconvenient, where constitutions are more than decorative documents, and where political parties serve as vehicles for democratic participation rather than private fiefdoms of the well connected.

Consider the matter of Article 56(b) of the 2022 APC Constitution. The PPRC has confirmed that this provision is legal. It is within the party’s right to establish rules governing membership and eligibility. This is as it should be. Political parties must be permitted to organize themselves according to principles their members collectively embrace. But here is where the ruling delivers its most consequential blow: Article 56(b) cannot reach backward in time to punish members for events that occurred before the rule existed.

This is not legal technicality. This is civilizational principle.

The prohibition against retroactive punishment exists in legal systems across the world because humanity learned, through centuries of bitter experience, that allowing today’s rulers to criminalize yesterday’s conduct is the gateway to tyranny. If a party can disqualify you today for something that was not disqualifying when you did it, then no one is safe. Your membership, your eligibility, your political future all become hostage to the shifting moods of whoever happens to control the machinery at any given moment.

The PPRC has declared that the APC, whatever its other prerogatives, cannot travel back in time to rewrite the rules of the game after the game has been played. This is not a victory for Sam Sumana. This is a victory for every member of every political party in Sierra Leone who deserves to know that the rules protecting them today will not be retroactively erased tomorrow.

And what of the 2025 disciplinary process that attempted to relitigate matters already settled five years prior? The PPRC has pronounced it invalid. The Disciplinary Committee, whatever impressive titles its members may hold, lacked the authority to revisit decisions that had already been properly concluded. This is the legal equivalent of a court declaring that you cannot be tried twice for the same offense. Finality matters. Closure matters. A political party cannot simply keep reconvening tribunals until it gets the verdict it wants.

To my brothers and sisters in the diaspora, scattered across continents but connected by blood and memory to the red soil of Sierra Leone, I address the following words with particular urgency: What you have witnessed in this ruling is precisely what you should demand from the political institutions of your homeland.

You send remittances that keep families afloat. You invest in businesses that create employment. You advocate in foreign capitals for Sierra Leone’s interests. You carry the flag of our nation to every corner of the globe. You have earned the right to expect that political parties competing for the privilege of governing Sierra Leone conduct themselves with honor, with transparency, and with fidelity to their own constitutions.

The PPRC ruling affirms that the APC, despite the machinations of certain officials, remains bound by the rule of law. It confirms that arbitrary exclusion is not acceptable. It establishes that procedural manipulation will be identified and condemned. It sends a message that resonates far beyond the specific facts of this case: Sierra Leone’s democratic institutions are watching, and they will hold political actors accountable.

But institutional rulings, however righteous, are only as meaningful as the enforcement that follows. And here we arrive at the critical question that every APC member, every diaspora observer, every citizen who believes in constitutional governance must now ask: Will the party comply?

The PPRC has ordered specific remedies. The fraudulent “Honorary Foundation” membership card, that bureaucratic insult designed to create a category of membership that carries a title but no rights, must be withdrawn. A proper APC membership card, dated to reflect the lawful 2020 readmission, must be issued. These are not suggestions. These are directives from a regulatory body with constitutional authority.

The coming weeks will reveal whether the APC leadership understands that this moment is larger than any individual personality or factional calculation. Compliance is not optional. It is the minimum requirement of an organization that wishes to be taken seriously as a democratic institution rather than dismissed as a collection of powerful men who make rules for others while exempting themselves.

To those within the APC who may counsel defiance or delay, who may whisper in corridors that the ruling can be ignored or circumvented, who may plot procedural maneuvers designed to achieve through obstruction what they could not achieve through legitimate process, I offer this warning: the diaspora is watching. The international community is watching. The young Sierra Leoneans who will determine the political future of this nation are watching. And history, that most unforgiving of judges, is taking notes.

You stand at a crossroads. One path leads toward reconciliation, toward respect for process, toward the kind of internal party democracy that builds public confidence and electoral strength. The other path leads toward continued factional warfare, toward the international embarrassment of a major political party openly defying its own regulatory body, toward the slow erosion of credibility that inevitably accompanies lawlessness dressed in the robes of institutional authority.

Choose wisely.

For the broader Sierra Leonean public, this ruling offers a template for what engaged citizenship should demand from all political parties. The PPRC has demonstrated that it will examine internal party processes, that it will call out bad faith when it finds it, and that it will order remedies when rights have been violated. This is exactly what a regulatory body should do. It deserves the support and encouragement of every citizen who believes that political competition should be governed by rules rather than raw power.

But regulatory bodies can only do so much. Ultimately, the health of our democracy depends on citizens who refuse to accept arbitrary exclusion as normal, who insist that party constitutions be honored, who raise their voices when powerful actors attempt to manipulate processes for personal advantage. The PPRC has done its part. Now we must do ours.

Let the message go forth from this ruling to every political party in Sierra Leone: your internal processes are not beyond scrutiny. Your constitutional provisions must be applied fairly and consistently. Your disciplinary mechanisms cannot be weaponized for factional advantage. Your members have rights that your officials are bound to respect.

And let the message go forth to every Sierra Leonean who has ever been tempted to believe that the powerful always win, that rules exist only for the weak, that there is no point in demanding accountability because accountability is a luxury our nation cannot afford: you are wrong. The system, imperfect as it may be, still contains mechanisms for justice. The PPRC ruling proves it.

Sam Sumana’s readmission into the APC in September 2020 was lawful. The subsequent efforts to undermine that readmission were procedurally improper and conducted in bad faith. New constitutional provisions cannot be applied retroactively to punish members for pre existing circumstances. Disciplinary processes that attempt to relitigate settled matters are invalid.

These are not opinions. These are findings. And findings demand action.

The APC must now demonstrate whether it is a party of laws or a party of men. The answer to that question will echo through the diaspora communities of London and Washington, of Johannesburg and Dubai, of every city where Sierra Leoneans have made homes while keeping their hearts turned toward Freetown. It will shape international perceptions of Sierra Leone’s democratic maturity. It will influence the calculations of donors and investors and diplomatic partners who watch our internal governance for signs of progress or regression.

Most importantly, it will tell young Sierra Leoneans whether the political institutions that claim to represent their future deserve their participation or their contempt.

The rule of law has spoken. The question that remains is as old as democracy itself: Will power listen?

The world awaits your answer.

The writer believes that political parties are the foundations upon which democratic houses are built, and that foundations constructed on the shifting sands of convenience rather than the bedrock of constitutional principle will not withstand the storms to come.