While stalwarts and supporters in the former ruling All People’s Congress (APC) are busy claiming that the Governance Transition Team (GTT) Report that nails their National Chairman and Leader, his cousin and other prominent stalwarts who served in the Koroma administration lacks credibility, things seem to the falling apart in the party. The APC, it seems, is parting company with former Vice President Victor Bockarie Foh who vehemently condemned the decision of the party hierarchy to petition the results of the closely fought 31st March, 2018 presidential runoff election which the then main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party presidential candidate, Brig. (Rtd.) Julius Maada Bio won.
Latest reports are that former Vice President Victor Bockarie Foh, who for nearly fifty years had been a stalwart in the APC and had laid his life of it, has given a stern noticed to the party to quit his houses in Bo and Kenema which the party is using as Regional Offices. According to inside sources, the former Vice President and the party hierarchy had earlier agreed in principle that the latter should give up the buildings but since the APC Secretariat in Freetown reneged on the agreement, former VP Foh has now decided that they should quit his buildings with immediate effect.
Former VP Foh’s fallout with the only political party he had ever served in life would not surprise many Sierra Leoneans who have been gauging the political trend in the APC prior to the March, 2018 national elections. Amongst other things, former VP Foh reportedly felt disappointed when he was not selected as the APC presidential candidate at their National Delegate Conference in Makeni late last year after he had been reportedly assured by the National Chairman and Leader, former President Ernest Bai Koroma. There were even rumours that he wrote an acceptance speech that was endorsed by his boss ahead of the convention. Consequently, former VP Foh went into oblivion after the Makeni convention and nothing was heard of him throughout the campaign period until when the results of the presidential runoff elections were announced. That was the moment when he had to strike back by vehemently condemning the decision of the APC hierarchy to challenge the presidential runoff results in the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone.
Erstwhile VP Foh even went further to react to claims by APC members and supporters that President Brig. (Rtd.) Julius Maada Bio’s appointments were largely tribal and regional. When he described the cabinet of former President Koroma in 2007 and 2012 as being more tribal and regional, APC members and supporters went for the jugular making inflammatory statements against him in both the traditional and social media.
The tension between former VP Foh and the APC reached a fever pitch when the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) invited him last week for questioning with regards the Hajj-gate under investigation. None of APC member or support went to sympathize with him because he has distant himself from their legal action against the SLPP which he said made no sense because, in his works, the presidential runoff election was freely and fairly won by Maada Bio and that the young man, whom he described as being humble, was is God’s chosen one. VP Foh at the St. Luke’s Church at Wilberforce in Freetown accused the former APC presidential candidate, Dr. Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara as being hypocritical for congratulating Maada Bio during a service in the same church but later joined the party hierarchy to challenge the results of the presidential runoff election at the Supreme Court.
With the APC turning their backs on Hon. Victor Foh who has served the party in the most honorable way than all other stalwarts put together, including their National Chairman and Leader who abandoned the APC and joined the People’s Democratic Party (PDP –Sorbeh) for the 1996 presidential and parliamentary elections, he would have no regret for severing relationship from the party for its ungratefulness. The APC, it seems, has been hijacked by the Northern Mafiosi who have deviated from the political tradition of Siaka Probyn Stevens to embrace all Sierra Leoneans irrespective of tribe, region or religion. Everywhere in Sierra Leone he would claim as his home. But for former President Koroma, he personalized the APC and ensured that all his siblings, friends and concubines enriched themselves to the detriment of impoverished Sierra Leoneans.
That APC stalwarts and supporters would comment that “Mende man na Mende man” after Hon. Victor Foh had told them the truth about petitioning the results of the presidential runoff election is the most ungrateful and stupid thing they have done to someone who laid his life for the party when most of them were either at their embryonic stage or were not even born yet.
No matter in whichever way you describe Hon, Victor Foh, he is a proud Mende man who sacrificed more for the APC than most Northerners in the party now claiming to be more APC than him. Even if he has nothing more to do with the party, his name will ever remain in the anal of history as one of the most party loyalists that would only be compared to diehard loyalists like Hon. Mannah Kpaka, Rev. Paul Dumba, PC Foday Yumkella, Sorie Ibrahim Koroma, Christian Alusine Kamara-Taylor, among others.
The best thing for the APC to do is to vacate the buildings of Hon. Victor Foh in Bo and Kenema with immediate effect or risk facing injunction which would be embarrassing and disgraceful.