Former President of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma, finally returns to the country on Sunday, September 6th, after more than two years in exile in Nigeria and a brief visit for the ECOWAS summit in July.

Diplomacy has finally prevailed as the government in Freetown discontinued the former APC leader’s trial for his alleged involvement in the November 26th, 2023 attempted coup to topple President Julius Maada Bio’s government.

There is excitement around the former president’s return, especially among his supporters and party members. EBK, as he’s also known, remains very influential in Sierra Leonean politics, especially in his APC party where he still commands respect and enjoys widespread support.

Koroma returns to a politically charged environment as the country gears up for the 2028 elections. Internal party politics in both the SLPP and APC camps are in full swing, and for Koroma, the timing couldn’t be better. He comes back to a party that has been tossed into a political whirlpool and is struggling to find its feet. A party that is limping, but has a mountain ahead to climb. What state of affairs in the APC does EBK return to?

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There is a dispute over the tenure and authority of the APC’s national executive. There is a court injunction involving senior party officials. District elections are approaching with disagreements over how the party’s internal electoral process should proceed. Recently in Parliament, APC MPs walked out in protest over voting procedures for passing constitutional amendments.

And somewhere in the middle of all this, an APC parliamentarian attracted attention after saying that if someone had actually offered him the alleged US$100,000 and a vehicle to influence his vote, he would have taken them. If you look at these separately, these are just interesting stories, but when analyzed together, they provoke a much bigger question around the status quo that the former President returns to in his party and, more importantly, how ready the APC is for the 2028 elections.

Goings on in the APC and its readiness matter because it is not simply re-organising itself after the 2023 elections. It is also starting the long process that eventually produces the party leadership, its presidential candidate and the entire machinery with which it hopes to challenge the SLPP, who are a step ahead already as they have successfully elected their national officers and organized all other sub-structures.

Who runs the APC as Ernest Bai Koroma returns? He returns to a party without substantive leadership. They are in court and at the centre of the controversy is a dispute over the tenure of the party’s national executive. The current leadership was elected in 2023. Questions over the expiration of its mandate and the arrangements for completing the party’s internal elections are what is before the courts.

Justice Adrian Fisher has issued an interim injunction restricting National Chairman Osman Foday Yansanneh, Secretary General Lansana Dumbuya and other affected executive members from exercising certain functions while the substantive case is before the court. This order does not amount to a final verdict, and it does not mean that the APC as a party has ceased to function. In fact, the court has allowed limited administrative activity to enable the party to carry on essential processes, including the district elections. But politically, this situation presents an awkward question for a party that is preparing to market itself to Sierra Leoneans as a government-in-waiting.

Who has legitimate authority to manage the APC while it regroups for 2028? What is unfolding is similar to what we saw in the run up to the 2023 general elections, where the APC were in and out of court over similar questions. Justice Fisher is probably smiling at the familiarity of the challenge before him.

On Sunday, July 6, 2025, President Koroma boarded a flight to Freetown, accompanied by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Photo Credit: Sheriff Mahmud Ishmail on Facebook.

On Sunday, September 6, 2025, President Koroma boarded a flight to Freetown, accompanied by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Photo Credit: Sheriff Mahmud Ishmail on Facebook.

The next step in the APC’s rocky path to reorganizing its structures seems straightforward on the surface. Except that it’s not. The district elections must be completed before the party can move on to the next set of elections and the national delegates conference. The district elections are not merely contests over who becomes chairman or secretary of a district. The party structures move upward from wards to constituencies, then districts, regions, and the national level. District and cotructures ultimately feed into the party’s delegate system, and this is what makes it complex.

Some of the people winning these lower elections, such as the district and regional elections, will form the voting delegates register for the much bigger national elections and the flagbearer race. As many within the party have suggested, the contestations, wrangling and court cases are all connected to the flagbearer politics. An odd number of aspirants are positioning themselves for the presidential ticket, and each of them holds views and suspicions about the current executive. So, beyond the valid question of legality and legitimacy of tenure, there are also the undercurrents of flagbearer politics, which Koroma has been watching from afar and will now take a front-row seat to.

As EBK returns, it is important to ask what kind of a party he returns to, but if you are an APC supporter watching all of this play out, you would probably be asking what role the former Chairman and Leader can play. Koroma remains the most influential elder in the APC and one of the very few with sufficient political weight to speak across the various interests and camps. All the presidential candidate aspirants acknowledge Koroma’s weight and have been working hard to win some favour from him.

This is a unique position that makes EBK a useful stabilizer who can help lower tensions and unite the party. On the flip side, Koroma’s presence and influence also carry a risk. Some within the party still blame him for what is happening today, arguing that his use of power and influence was excessive and sometimes miscalculated, costing the party since 2018. If he is perceived as taking sides in the internal politics and flagbearer race, it would further divide the party and push factions to their extremes as they fight to dominate and prevail. So, as Koroma returns, he comes as a double-edged sword. An elder who helps calm things down and plays a role in reconciling factions, or the same old powerful actor around whom the various factions organize.

Source: Engage Salone