On Tuesday, September 28, 2010, Awareness Times newspaper published a profile of Professor Ritchard Tamba M’Bayo, aspirant for the flagbearership of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). The profile also carried a list of names of people as contact persons for Professor M’Bayo’s campaign and their telephone numbers. Unfortunately, the names included people who are also party delegates. The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Party had previously instructed all delegates to refrain from open alignment with aspirants as part of the effort to ensure a free and fair atmosphere of competition among the aspirants.
Mr. Sahr Kumasi and Mr. Bai Sesay were among the contact persons listed in Professor M’Bayo’s profile that appeared in the Awareness Times newspaper. Both men are delegates of the party, and have been reprimanded for what party officials see as a violation of party rules and regulations for aligning themselves with my campaign in that manner.
Professor Ritchard Tamba M’Bayo
The names of Mr. Kumasi and Mr. Sesay were extracted from our general list of contacts and published inadvertently with several other names.
I would like to inform the general public that neither Mr. Kumasi nor Mr. Sesay is leading or representing our campaign in any region of the country. I also want to take personal responsibility for what is clearly not only an error but also a failure on my part to pay more attention to the details of the profile. For this I am terribly sorry for causing Mr. Kumasi and Mr. Sesay any embarrassment and discomfort arising from the publication of this profile.
Sincerely,
Professor Ritchard Tamba M’Bayo, Ph.D.
Aspirant, SLPP
30 September 2010
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Newspaper in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
