The main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) has raised grave concerns over the possibility of the participation of non-existent voters (ghost voters) in the forthcoming parliamentary bye-elections to be held in Constituencies 4 and 97 in the Kailahun District and Western Urban respectively.

SLPP Kailahun District Chairman, Albert Jambai, told the Awareness Times in a telephone interview this week that Christiana Thorpe, the NEC head, was yet to correct a serious anomaly in the voters’ register of the 2007 elections.

It could be recalled that there were serious allegations that Dr. Thorpe, in concert with the United Nations Technical Team, had included ghost names in the voters register during the registration process in the 2007 general elections. These allegations were buttressed by the fact that NEC’s Christiana Thorpe never published the voters’ lists in the various localities across the country as required by law during the 2007 registration process. This anomaly that supposedly made way for the participation of hundreds, if not thousands, of ghost voters in the past general elections has never been corrected.

SLPP’s Jambai alleged that APC operatives are presently taking snapshots of people in Kailahun in order for such photos to be placed on ghost voters’ identification cards, whose names are already in the NEC register, for participation in the forthcoming election.

Jambai confidently stated that the APC has no support in Kailahun but intends to use surreptitious tactics in the forthcoming election.

He however pointed out that the SLPP was on the red alert and ready for a landslide victory over the APC.

The SLPP Kailahun Chairman also used the forum as an opportunity to disclose that the people of Kailahun are all set to give a rousing welcome to the National Chairman and Leader of the SLPP, John Oponjo Benjamin, who is leading a high powered delegation from Freetown to Kailahun today.

“We are all set to give a hero’s welcome to our National Chairman, who is going to be re-elected with a landslide victory in the forthcoming national party conference as a show of appreciation for his dynamism in handling the affairs of the party,” Albert Jambai pointed out, noting that he was speaking for the vast majority of the various SLPP Chairmen across the country.

Meanwhile, APC’s Cornelius Deveaux, has categorically denied claims by the SLPP that the APC was engaged in dubious acts in preparation for the forthcoming bye-elections. “All of those allegations are not only incorrect but are being made as excuses in advance for the woeful defeat they stand to suffer in the hands of our party,” The Editor for the APC We Yone Newspaper told the Awareness Times last night, furthering that the APC was all set to massively beat the SLPP in "its so-called traditional stronghold of Kailahun".

However, the sentiments of Jambai were buttressed by the elected SLPP Western Region Public Relations Officer (PRO) cum Spokesman, Christopher Ayo Jones. In an interview with the Awareness Times last night, Jones accused the APC of engaging in massive importation of people into Constituency 97 for participation in the forthcoming election. According to him, the aforementioned people were being fetched from localities outside constituency 97, especially from Port Loko, into Tassoh Island.

Christopher Ayo Jones also used the forum as an opportunity to authoritatively assert that the western region is well set to massively re-elect John Oponjo Benjamin as National Chairman and Leader of the party in the forthcoming SLPP national conference. “As far as the vast majority of elected delegates of the five districts and twenty one constituencies in the western region are concerned, we are only waiting for the party’s national conference to re-elect our vibrant Chairman in a landslide victory,” Jones pointed out, noting that John Benjamin deserves to be honored for his good work.

He furthered thus: “We have lately noticed a few empty buckets making loud noise in the media, but the overwhelming votes that JOB will poll in the national conference will serve as a lesson to enemies of progress in SLPP”.