The Executive Chairman, Bo Rangers Football Club Mr. Babadi Kamara, has in a statement issued on Monday, February 8, 2021, called on Parliament to be cautious of the possibility that its engagement with SLFA and other football stakeholders on the electoral process could be disapproved by FIFA.
He said that almost everyone is dismayed with the ongoing infighting in Sierra Leone football. He claimed that, the general call is that the current President Isha Johansen should go. “Yes we all want her to go but which model do we use to get her out? Do we circumvent the rules and electoral processes to fit an individual or do we play by the rules of the game?”
The above questions necessitate from the cry that Mohamed Kallon, the finest Sierra Leonean footballer our country has seen, has been disadvantaged.
He reviewed the fact that, Isha Johansen Rodney Micheal, Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai, Kofi, Thomas Brima and Mohamed Kallon had all intended to lead Sierra Leone football, as SLFA President. He commended the fact that out of the six, five went through nomination successfully which is a success rate of 83.33%. “For every electoral process I am very sure this percentage is an excellent passing rate,” he said.
He furthered: “Let us also put this in to context, in 2002, Charles Margai was disqualified to contest against late president Kabbah for the SLPP flag bearer on the grounds that he was not a paid up member of the party. This means, if you want to contest an election, both the nominee and nominator should be qualified for hold the position contested for. In the case of SLFA, every aspirant was supposed to be nominated by one person and seconded by another person. Isha, Rodney, Kofi, Saffa all went through this process successfully. Why would the only legend in the ring fail to do his homework,” he wondered.
He went on to rationalize that playing football is different from governing it, saying: “A political parliamentary candidate will not be nominated by a paid up member of that party and seconded by a foreign National. This is clearly the case in the legend’s saga.”
“Before God and man too, we have to be fair with the General Secretary of SLFA, he took his time and created a WhatsApp group purposely for the management of the electoral process, he posted all the guidelines over and again and the deadline for the process was communicated many times. Why blame anyone for this,” he concluded by vindicating the General Secretary by saying.
By Desmond Tunde Coker
10/02/2021. ISSUE NO: 7999