By Ishmael Koroma
The Secretary General of the main opposition All Peoples Congress Party (APC), Alhaji Osman Foday Yansaneh told Salone Fact-Checker in an exclusive interview that the press release making the rounds on social media, dated 8th September 2019, stating that the APC party had changed its position in the ongoing Commissions of Inquiry is fake.
According to the fake press statement, at an emergency National Advisory Committee (NAC) meeting of the party on Saturday September 7, the party had revised its position on the ongoing Commissions of Inquiry (COI). The press release stated that the public would before the start of the COI, their party took a position of non-compliance until the matter, that had been taken to the Supreme Court by the Sierra Leone Bar Association to wit the rules of evidence, are addressed.
“Also, after wide ranging consultations with our membership, it was resolved that our former ministers who served the people of this country diligently under the dynamic leadership of Comrade Ernest Bai Koroma, should not heed to any call by the Kangaroo Commissions of Inquiry set up by the SLPP government to cripple and ridicule the APC,’’ the fake press release stated.
The fake release further stated that as a party, they have followed with keen attention, the proceedings of the COI, and impressed with the robust defence of their battery of lawyers who have displayed mastery of the law to the admiration of even the judges.
It is important to note that this is not the first-time fake press releases purported to have come from the main opposition party have floated on social media. It has happened with other political parties, including the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP).