Navo Kaikai: wants to replace Nyuma

Councillor Salim Ndomawa, the elected Councillor for Ward 6 in Constituency 02 (Upper Bambara & part of Luawa) has followed suite of Kailahun Local Council Chairman Tom Nyuma to defect from the SLPP under which symbol he was elected. In an interesting twist to the ongoing Kailahun saga, the councillor did not declare his new allegiance to be with the ruling APC like Nyuma but to the opposition party of the former rebels, the RUF party.

The announcement last weekend, was at a ceremony to open brand new RUFP offices in Kailahun and pray for souls of all who died in the war and since the war ended.

Speaking with Awareness Times  inside the 1937 Kailahun Court Barray last weekend, Councillor Ndomawa said he was quitting SLPP to join RUF party in order to “send a message” about what people in Kailahun think about SLPP right now. He said he was always RUF but that he had been “on loan” to SLPP. He also accused SLPP of neglect of Kailahun district.

Councillor Ndomawa, like Chairman Tom Nyuma, will continue to keep their membership within Kailahun Local Council as councillor and chairman respectively. The RUFP councillor has said his people voted for him and not because he had the SLPP symbol. He said his people in Ward 6 (Gbewbu Gao) were RUFP in the majority and so he was assured their votes will be for RUFP and not SLPP.

Kailahun District Party Chairman for SLPP Mr. Jambai has confirmed the defection from SLPP to RUFP but declined to make further comments. Mr. Jambai has been busy organising last minute registrations of persons. Our correspondents met him hard at work organising motorbikes to transport unregistered voters along the Pendembu axis in Kailahun.

RUFP Interim Leader Eldred Collins boasted to journalists immediately after the opening of RUFP offices that this defection is “just the tip of the iceberg” of what his party plans to do “all over the country”. According to Collins, “RUFP will cause major upsets all over the country in this year’s elections” as the party was now “very very strong” and “RUF children in all four corners of the country are coming back now that the party is no longer dormant”.

Meanwhile, Tom Nyuma and a high powered APC delegation including Victor Foh, Alhaji M.S. Kargbo (APC Organising Secretary), W.J. Smith (Resident Minister), Balogun Koroma (Elections Co-ordinator) on Saturday entered Kailahun town in order to attend the One Year Memorial funeral rites for the late father of Maya Kaikai, owner of Luawa Resort Hotel who is a staunch supporter of the APC and President Koroma.

At the Kailahun funeral rites occasion, proposed Kailahun District Chairman under the SLPP symbol for this year’s elections, Madam Navo Kaikai has praised President Koroma to the large gathering. Navo Kaikai, the aunty-in-law of Maya Kaikai, stated she was a loyal SLPP member who is determined to clinch the SLPP’s symbol to replace Tom Nyuma this November but that she will not allow her SLPP membership to destroy her relationship with her APC friends and relatives. For example, she said if anybody thought she should shy away from Maya Kaikai (her in-law) just because she was running for SLPP position, then let such person decide not to vote for her if the person likes but she will never destroy friendship and family ties because of politics. She got loud applause at this.

Possibly encouraged by this reaction from the mostly APC gathering, Navo Kaikai then spoke glowingly of the positive attributes of Ernest Koroma whom she described as a nice man who honoured her by meeting with her in London and taking photos with her in London. She said she enjoys a good relationship with the president and had even already informed Ernest Koroma of her intentions to run for the position currently held by Tom Nyuma.