A Satire:
“APC Rejects Professor Richard M’Bayo’s Claim for
Political Asylum
Messeh Kamara –
London, UK
1 February 2011
A Letter from
the APC Party in reply to Professor M’Bayo’s
Application for Asylum
Dear Professor Richard M’ Bayo
You have applied for political
asylum to the All Peoples Congress Party (APC) and
asked to be recognised as a refuge under the 1991
Sierra Leone Constitution relating to section 26(1)
as follows:
"except with his own consent, no person shall be
hindered in the enjoyment of his freedom of assembly
and association, that is to say, his right to
assemble freely and associate with other persons and
in particular to form or belong to any political
party, trade unions or other economic, social or
professional associations, national or
international, for the protection of his interests."
On the basis that it would be
contrary to APC’s obligations under the Sierra Leone
Constitution for you to be removed from or required
to leave the APC. You claim to have a well founded
fear of persecution in the SLPP.
Your application for political
asylum has not been considered by President Ernest
Bai Koroma personally but by the APC acting on his
behalf.
A person will be granted political
asylum in the APC if the Secretary General is
satisfied that: substantial grounds have been shown
for believing that if the person concerned, returns
to the party of origin, would face a real risk of
suffering serious harm and is unable, or, owing to
such risk, unwilling to avail himself of the
protection of that party.
In your interview or letter to the media of the 29th
January 2011, you said: "This is my story, in a
nutshell. It is left with you now to make your own
judgment about me. There is much more to say, but I
do not see the need to respond to every stone thrown
at me now."
By your own request for us to make
a judgement on your clams for fleeing the SLPP,
therefore, consideration has been given to whether
or not you qualify for political asylum. We note
that you had difficulty explaining the reasons why
you claim to have suffered persecution from the
SLPP.
You claim to have suffered
persecution because you are descended from the
Diaspora. In the alternative, it is because you are
the son of Kono, a friend of President Koroma and
brother of Vice President Sam-Sumana, both from the
APC.
You claim to have suffered
persecution because of your dual American
citizenship and that the SLPP had problem with
people from the Diaspora who want to be president.
You also claim that the SLPP delegate model has been
transformed into an elaborate and institutionalized
system of corruption, designed to extract money from
vulnerable flagbearer aspirants in lieu of serious
debates over policy matters.
In your own case, particularly,
you agonized in painful silence over many of these
issues. But, that at the district level, party
functionaries betrayed you. At the national level,
you suspected a heightened anti-diasporan sentiment
among some key members of the SLPP.
You said quite a number of them
are simply dishonest and fraudulent. They are
predators without conscience, and they prey on
vulnerable aspirants. For that alone, you did not
think any of them can be trusted to protect the
interest of Sierra Leone as president.
It is noted that in your screening
interview you named Ambassador Patrick Foyah,
Ambassador John Leigh, Hon. Ansu Kaikai, Professor
Septimus Kaikai as your friends from the United
States in your struggle for democracy through the
Coalition for Democracy in Sierra Leone (CODISAL),
as you all insisted upon an uncompromising stance on
the promotion of democratic principles and culture
in the wake of the coup that toppled President Ahmad
Tejan Kabbah in 1997, with the SLPP being the
greatest beneficiaries.
It is considered that even the
basic personal information you have provided above
about your fear of persecution in the SLPP and
relations in the Sierra Leone community, is
inconsistent and therefore casts doubt on your
entire claim for political asylum.
It is further noted that you have
failed to provide receipts of all the huge financial
expenditure you claim to have incurred; membership
card of the SLPP, or other documents that might be
expected to prove you were a genuine member of the
SLPP.
You failed to provide evidence
that other former members of the SLPP, including
Charles Margai, Dr. Lansana Nyallay, and Dr. John
Karefa-Smart, left the SLPP and joined the APC for
fear of being persecuted by the SLPP.
You also failed to show medical or
police reports to justify your asserted allegations
of all the stones thrown at you while in the SLPP.
In fact, our consultant - an internationally
acclaimed health expert in the United Kingdom, Ajan
Fofanah, himself had cast doubt over your medical
claims.
While it is accepted that
political asylum seekers may have difficulty
producing documentary proof, you claim to have many
close supporters and a campaign team in the SLPP,
who could easily provide you such evidential
documents, for you to be able to convince the APC
that you were indeed persecuted by the SLPP.
Because of your disagreement with
some members of the SLPP, you claim to have narrowly
avoided being killed, when the SLPP warlord called
Joe Kallon ordered the slaughter of all ‘spies and
moles’ in the party.
It is noted that some SLPP
information sources confirm that such an event took
place. However, your claim to be the intended victim
is untrue. If you had been the intended victim and
Joe Kallon was as powerful as you claim and with all
the stones thrown at you, then you would be dead by
now.
It is implausible that you could
have escaped in the way that you claim. This aspect
of your account is rejected as being implausible.
This further cast doubt in the credibility of your
claims. It is considered that you have fabricated
your story to enhance your claim for political
asylum in the APC.
You maintained that your
detractors have already said a lot of negative
things about you. Your failure to mention the names
of your detractors or persecutors including those
who took bribe or paid delegates for vote in the
SLPP, also casts further doubt on the veracity of
your claim.
You claim to have been involved in
a number of extremely implausible events, including;
you never spoke even once with President Koroma or
with Vice President Sam-Sumana, or with anyone in
the APC about your campaign or the internal matters
of the SLPP in the last three years, and throughout
your campaign, and that your friends in the APC were
following your movement through the media.
Your representative, a qualified
and accredited spiritual leader from the APC,
submitted that these miracles are allegorical and
are in fact complex metaphors. These aspects of your
claim are rejected and undermine your general
credibility.
It is noted that you claim to have
travelled to and fro the US to Sierra Leone via
Nigeria on a number of occasions to run your
campaigns in the SLPP, and that you spent some
$100,000 from your own money, from years of hard
work and personal savings. As your detractors
conceded, the amount simply does not add up, as you
did not provide any receipts for the said
expenditure or proof of income.
Further, if you had known that
Margai previously left the SLPP for fear of
persecution, you have not explained why you did not
terminate your membership of the SLPP earlier.
If you were genuinely in fear of
your political life because of your disagreement
with some SLPP stalwarts, it is reasonable to have
expected you to claim asylum at the earliest
opportunity. This casts further doubt on the
veracity of your claim.
It should be noted that by your
own admission, you have stated that there were no
physical attacks on you or your supporters. It is
considered that if you were being persecuted to the
degree that you describe by the SLPP militia,
because of your imputed political opinion, then a
far more consistent pattern of persecution would
have occurred.
It is considered that if you were genuinely
suspected of being an ally of the APC or
collaborator, you would have faced far graver
consequences. The fact that SLPP did not take more
drastic action against you, leads to one of two
possible conclusions; either they were satisfied
that you were not of adverse interest to them; or
that you were not of adverse attention to them in
the first place.
Your fear of persecution from the SLPP is therefore
not well founded, and it is not believed that you
ever received threats from them.
It is not considered credible that after going
through all the trouble of attacks in the SLPP, the
party would have then allowed you and the rest of
your supporters to stay in peace for the past number
of years, until they perpetrated the next attack.
If you were to receive an unpleasant verdict on your
candidacy as presidential aspirant for the party,
although we accept that political conditions in the
SLPP are poor, the objective evidence also suggests
that conditions have improved over recent years
owing to the intervention of the party chairman,
John Benjamin and Secretary General, Jacob Saffa.
Therefore, on the totality of the evidence, we find
that if you were to be returned to the SLPP. There
are no reasonable grounds for believing that you
would suffer ill-treatment.
It is further noted that your fear
is of the opposition party (the SLPP). They appear
to be non-state actors. It is therefore considered
reasonable that you could have relocated within the
PMDC; another division of the SLPP where you would
attain a refugee status in the first place.
Further, it is considered that you
have failed to avail yourself of the protection of
the police and therefore that you will have a
sufficiency of protection, if you are returned to
the SLPP.
In the light of all the evidence
available, it has been concluded that you have not
established a well-founded fear of persecution from
the SLPP and that you do not qualify for asylum in
APC.
Your asylum claim is therefore refused. It has also
been concluded that you have not shown that there
are substantial grounds for believing that you face
a real risk of suffering serious harm on return to
the SLPP and that you do not qualify for
Humanitarian Protection either.
In these circumstances, your claim
for political asylum in the APC is rejected. You are
requested to leave the APC now! If you do not leave
voluntarily your departure will be enforced.
However, you now have before the next general
election by 2012 to make an appeal against the
decision to remove you from the APC.
The appeal is an opportunity for
you to state your reasons for appealing, as well as
provide documentary evidence to substantiate your
claims for your fear of persecution in the SLPP.
To ensure speedier processing, all notice of appeal
forms are now sent directly to the Secretary General
of the APC, Mr. Victor Foe. Please note that while
you are appealing, you do not need to leave the APC.
You are allowed to stay and help
the party win the next elections. In the event that
our party wins the election, you would be given an
indefinite leave to remain in the APC, and perhaps
appointed a minister in the government.
Yours Sincerely
Satire Joe
The author - Messeh
Kamara, is a scholar of Law and Politics, currently
studying and living in the UK. He’s Executive
Director of the Centre for Civic Innovation (CCI).