Plagued with series of internal conflict since they lost the 2018 presidential election to the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), the Chairman and Leader of the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC), former President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma will soon speak on the party before it sets in motion the processes for electing a new national leadership.

According to sources, Ernest, as he is popularly known, will deliver his address immediately after the High Court delivers verdict on the Constitutional matter brought before it by lawyer for plaintiff, Alfred Peter Conteh, for which he as Chairman and Leader and the National Secretary General are the main respondents. Significantly, sources said that Ernest would officially declare whether or not he wants to continue to lead the APC; as well as on the way forward into the 2023 national elections.

It could be recalled that in September 2021, Ernest at an emergency national delegates’ conference in Makeni addressed the party in his capacity as the Chairman and Leader with, according to him, mixed feelings. Ernest expressed sadness that it is a court order that has to bring them together as a party. “This is not the APC that we inherited,” he said.

APC, he acknowledged, has been faced with a seemingly intractable constitutional quarrel since the National Reformation Movement (NRM) rose up in 2020 to demand review of the party’s 1995 Constitution to be in accord with the democratic norms of the country’s 1991 Constitution. Ernest maintained that the party should be able to resolve any differences in-house and not in court.

The Exclusive Newspaper reports that, he gave a hint of coming events when he started openly that he is tired and that the party should give opportunity to others to come in as his leadership is stepping aside. However, he maintained that they do not have to go to court for that. He furthered stated that if it is the court that has to nullify his leadership of the party, then he will go back to the APC membership to confirm that. However, he stated that he is tired; adding that it is not social media or ‘sonkor-sonkor’ that will determine the party’s leadership, which he said, will not be right, stating that delay in resolving will only delay his departure.