 |
| Former VP Victor Foh |
Sierra Leone's outgoing Vice President, Ambassador Victor Bockarie Foh, has in a letter written to his All Peoples Congress (APC) party, tendered his resignation from active party politics in the country.
Victor Bockarie Foh who was the former Secretary General of the All Peoples Congress party and also very instrumental in that party regaining its former glory, was the Sierra Leone Ambassador to China prior to being given the Vice President portfolio following the scandalous removal from office of the then Vice President Alhaji Chief Sam Sumana.
 |
| Vice President Chief Sam Sumana |
The role that Victor Foh played around the removal of his immediate predecessor still remains murky and shrouded in mystery, as he was initially seen as being very close to Chief Sam Sumana. However, many Sierra Leone political pundits agree that the decision to remove the then vice president may have cost the the APC party the presidency, as many of the people from Sumana's Kono district defected from APC in droves during the past elections. Sumana was a presidential candidate in the last election, but his party only gained traction in his home district.
In a country where shifting political affiliations are very common, Victor Foh holds the distinction of being among the few politicians in the country who never changed political parties. Even at the time when his APC party was buried in the political mud after the military coup of 1992, he was one of the few who did not abandon APC.
 |
| APC Candidate Dr. Samura Kamara |
Last year, Victor Foh's decision to contest as a presidential candidate of the the All Peoples Congress party in the hope that the party will have the very first candidate who was not from the north of the country led to what he has publicly described his public humiliation at the Makeni convention. On the even of the selection the then President Ernest Bai Koroma stated publicly that he had no regional consideration of whom he wanted to replace him, but then went about to select both presidential and vice presidential candidates from the north of the country.
After the decision Victor Foh felt very humiliated, as rumors had been afloat that the president had assured him not to worry and that many of the party top brass had thrown their weight behind him, praising his loyalty to the party. After the convention, VP Foh largely disappeared from public view.
In recent days, VP Foh had publicly endorsed the current President, Rtd. Brigadier Julius Maada Bio, a man who he had known for more than forty years. He praised the president's character and removed himseld from all court cases brought against him by members of the opposition APC party. Victor Foh also urged members of his APC party to drop all frivolous lawsuits challenging the legitimacy of Brigadier Bio, reminding them that, "power comes from God" and "the voice of the people is the voice of God."
Victor Foh, in a shortly worded letter to the leadership of the APC, wrote that he was retiring from active party politics, but would always be available to help in the national interest.
There are currently court cases brought by the defeated presidential candidate of the APC Dr. Samura Kamara and the journalist turned APC political hack, Dr. Sylvia Blyden, both seeking to nullify the votes of the recent elections and probably find a legal loophole to instal Samura Kamara as president, even though all foreign and domestic election observers have described the results of the elections as reflecting the will of the people and APC had won the majority of the parliamentary seats.
APC's removal of Sam Sumana with the support of the Supreme Court has emboldened members of the party to think that the courts of Sierra Leone will rule in their favor against the will of the people of Sierra Leone.
Vice President Foh is seen by many as a man with many political lives and many are waiting to see whether he will just hibernate or go into political retirement for good.
No comments:
Post a Comment