Over Bashing of Mayor at State House…John Benjamin says Kenema Councillors Cheap & Misguided

Former chairman and leader of the main opposition, Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), John Oponjo Benjamin has in a phone call on Sunday 17th April 2016 referred to five SLPP Kenema City Councillors who paid a courtesy call on President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma at State House, Freetown as misguided and cheap councillors.

Official State House report say the visiting opposition Sierra Leone Peoples Party Councillors who were accompanied by the APC Deputy Publicity Secretary 2 Hon. Robin Fallay include Councillor Amidu B. Bah in charge of Education, Youth and Sport; Councillor Joseph Alpha in charge of Fire Force and Disaster Management; Councillor Alimamy Rogers for Budget and Finance; Councillor Mohamed Seventy-Sesay for Agriculture, and Councillor Aminata Koroma, Deputy Chair for the Social Welfare Committee. 

Mr. Benjamin said for the councillors to dissociate themselves from the leadership of the Kenema City Council under the name of SLPP was very bad. He stressed that had it not been the symbol of SLPP and their positions in the Council, the councillors would not have had the access to see the President.

Similar disgust was expressed by the leader and chairman of the Alliance Democratic Party (ADP), Mohamed Kamarainba Mansaray, who referred to SLPP “as a party that has completely failed the people of Sierra Leone”. He said, “the party has not any sense of direction, neither has it a direction”.

Mr. Mansaray also blamed the failure of other opposition parties as caused by the SLPP. He said if SLPP is in disarray, than they cannot succeed as opposition parties, adding that SLPP needs to be unified and to be ready to work with other opposition parties in order for them to serve as formidable check and balance to the Government.

He ended that if the councillors do not understand what it means by dissociating themselves from their Council, then, he said “SLPP has lost the sense of good opposition”. 

However, in the release, one of the councillors is quoted to have assured the President “We would appreciate if you could spare time again to visit us in Kenema so that you could see how ready we have become to work in support of the Agenda for Prosperity’’.