SLPP Northern firebrand now APC strongman
Former SLPP Chairman and Leader, Chief Alhaji Bai Sherbora Sumanoh Kapen III, is reported to have declared his support for the ruling All People’s Congress Party.
The declaration comes few weeks before the presidential and parliamentary elections to be held on March 7, 2018.
The public declaration on Monday 5th February 2018 of the former SLPP firebrand in the North, especially in Kambia District, has shocked most Sierra Leoneans.
“He was the last of the rock of the SLPP in the North,” said Augustin Kallon, a former supporter of the SLPP now PMDC. “We were not expecting this. Some of us were thinking he will quit politics or at worst join the National Grand Coalition.”
Chief Sumanoh Kapen has been chairman and leader of Sierra Leone’s main opposition party, the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), since 2013. Previously he was paramount chief of Mambolo Chiefdom in Kambia District.
He served as Paramount Chief of Mambolo Chiefdom in Kambia District from 1989 to 2007. In 2011, he was elected deputy leader of the SLPP party.
Chief Kapen was elected chairman and leader of the SLPP at the party’s 2013 convention held in the southern city of Bo, defeating his closest rival, former Ambassador to Ghana Alie Bangura, in a close race for the SLPP leadership position
Mohamed Gbla, a supporter of the APC, said the reason for the decision of the former SLPP chairman to now join forces with the ruling political party is the progress he is seeing and wants continuity.
“Sierra Leoneans are no longer fools. We will not see good things happening and allow frivolous ideologies to take us back,” he said, adding that the decision of Chief Sumanoh Kapen to join the APC answers the questions of critics.
Unlike other former SLPP members who joined Dr. Kandeh K. Yumkella at the NGC, Chief Sumanoh Kapen has pitched a tent with a former political foe, a decision, most pundits, are claiming will destabilize the seemingly strong support of the NGC in Kambia District.
Specimen-news.com 