The following letter from veteran politician Dr. John Karefa-Smart(pictured) was addressed to Albert Academy alumni in the United States but we thought it fit to share it with our readers because of it’s political and historical importance. The Editor/Publisher and a couple of senior staff and regular contributors of this newspaper are also Albert Academy alumni. Here is Dr. Karefa-Smart:
Dear Fellow alumni:
Some of you may be wondering why I have supported the APC led coalition that resulted in the defeat of the SLPP presidential candidate. You may be asking if I have forgotten that it was the APC president Siaka Stevens (also a fellow A.A. alumnus) who kept me in Pademba Road for 120 days without any charges until he was forced to release me by pressure from AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL.
Under ordinary circumstances it could not be conceived that I could forgive Stevens who treated me the way he did. It is widely known at home and abroad that it was my joining the APC after Albert Margai who was appointed by the Governor General without any consultation with members of the SLPP to succeed Sir Milton Margai made it known that any expatriate who was seen to be associating with me would be declared "persona non grata" that swung all my supporters in the SLPP to join me to the APC: a move that contributed to the APC winning the next election, which in turn led to Lieut. Hinga Norman, on orders from his commanding officer, Brigadier Lansana, to commit the very first coup d’etat in the history of our country by arresting the Governor General, Siaka Stevens and Albert Margai, just as the GG was going to declare that Stevens was the new Prime Minister.
When I returned home at the end of my five years as Assistant Director General of WHO in Switzerland Stevens reacted against my alliance with Dr. Mohamed Forna and the Taqui brothers in protest against the very evident dictatorship instituted by Stevens and his "Agba Satani" accomplice by consigning us to Pademba Road prison.
When Stevens was succeeded by Brigadier J.S. Momoh as President, to my greatest surprise, both Governor General Banja Tejan-Sie who had been banished to exile in London by Stevens when he declared a Republic and I received invitations from President Momoh to return to Sierra Leone. We were given the warmest reception and President Momoh put his helicopter at our disposal and arranged for us to visit all three provincial headquarters so that everyone could see that we had returned home on his invitation. After this, in the presence of his guests including the diplomatic corps at the largest ever presidential reception he surprised us and his guests by giving Sir Banja and me new diplomatic passports.
This very generous act of the new head of the APC touched me and as a Christian I have had no difficulty in forgiving the maltreatment by President Siaka Stevens. Until his death President Momoh and I maintained a close personal relationship. Although it is well known that it was the betrayal of APC that led to my defeat in the presidential "run- off" election against the SLPP candidate, Ahmed Tejan Kabba, in which, never the less,. Kaba won only because Jonah, the NEC chairman, collaborated in perpetuating undisputable cheating the facts of which are widely known by Sierra Leoneans at home and in the diaspora.
My relations with most leaders of the APC have remained friendly. I and members of my UNPP party have collaborated with the leaders of the APC and I was gratified when the coalition that I had urged for the presidential election as the only way in which the incumbent SLPP regime could be defeated was championed and led by the APC leader, our new president. I hope that this will help explain my enthusiastic support of the Hon. Ernest Koroma, the APC leader, our new President.
I look forward to the CHANGE which, under his leadership and in collaboration with the Hon. Charles Margai and his other coalition colleagues, will satisfy the hopes and wishes of the majority of Sierra Leoneans and begin the difficult task of returning our country to the respected position it held before and during the early years of our becoming an independent country.
John Karefa-Smart, "Esse quam videri" (1931).
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