Sir Albert Margai and the West 1967 Elections

Did Westerners Fool Sir Albert In 1966 , Or Was It Another Dumb SLPP Politicking That Boomeranged ?

POSTED BY: PUBLISHER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER KABS KANU MAY 15, 2016

By  Wilfred Leeroy Kabs-kanu

HERE IS A VERY interesting piece of news I found in the August 18, 1966 issue of the Daily Mail.

Freetown passed a vote of confidence on the PM , SIR ALBERT MARGAI and his SLPP government and assured the Pa that they will support his government in whatever way possible, just 7 months before the epic 1967 General Elections that changed Sierra Leone forever. 

 

SIR ALBERT MARGAI

The vote of confidence was signed by politicians, ministers of the gospel, businessmen , youths and people from all walks of life, according to the Daily Mail. 

I can imagine how Pa Shaki, S.I. , C.A, Bangali Mansaray, S.B. Kawusu-Konte  and others felt with this development , given that the APC needed to win Freetown to stand any chance in the elections. Did it put fear in them ? Only God knows.

The so-called vote of confidence from the Western Area which the PM  valued and believed so much he handed to the Governor-General, Sir Henry Lightfoot-Boston , turned to be a ruse , because in the elections that followed 7 months later, the then opposition APC completely  swept the votes in Freetown  and the SLPP hardly won a seat there. In fact, it was from the results coming from Freetown that the PM  smelt the rat that his world was completely caving in, under his disbelieving eyes.

The SLPP lost the elections  with costs and had to invite the Force Commander Brigadier David Lansana, an in-law of the PM,   to stage a coup, a development that our country is still suffering from today, 49 years after. The 1967 coup and what followed retarded our country in a way that is unimaginable.

Was Sir Albert fooled by the Creoles or was he lying ?

As a cub journalist then, writing under the pen name SAM BLUNT at the age of 12, on the same year I entered secondary school , I can sill remember  what happened. The vote of confidence could not have reflected the true picture of what was going on  because it had come to a time in 1966 when the PM was being booed on the streets and even angry women were turning  their backs on him and prostrating . The Creoles had disliked Sir Albert  like the dirt under their shoes because he had been accused of marginalizing them and putting Mendes in all positions in the Civil Service and MDAs.The opposition newspapers, Shekpendeh, Think, Awoko, Scope and We Yone were slaughtering him like somebody without an owner. So from where did the vote of confidence come when de Pa had become so unpopular?

SHAKI : HE WAS NOT A UNIVERSITY GRADUATE BUT WAS SMARTER THAN THE SLPP

One year afer this vote of confidence, the Prime Minister was in detention at Pademba Road Prisons appearing before the Forster Commission of Inquiry which was set up by the NRC military regime to investigate corruption in his government, and he was being booed to the rafters by huge Freetown crowds that gathered outside the hall  every morning to catch a glimpse of him and his ministers being led to the Commission .

Did the Western Area fool the PM ?

If indeed 1966 /67 set the tone for today’s political realities in Sierra Leone, this incident is very important because, fundamentally, it exposes the differences between the SLPP and the APC.