There has been shocking revelation to radio listeners when Charles Francis Margai unwittingly confirmed that interpretation of Section 41 of the Constitution by President Koroma is 100% accurate meaning it is Dr. Abdulai Conteh who is wrong. Mr. Margai made this revelation inadvertently during an interview with FM98.1 Radio yesterday March 24th 2015.

It can be recalled that on March 6th 2015, the former Vice-President was expelled from ruling APC party thus automatically losing continuous requirement of Section 41 meaning he was no longer Vice President. He was by then still under quarantine for Ebola.

However on 17th March 2015 when the former Vice-President was ending his Ebola quarantine the next day but trying to purport he was still in office, it forced President Koroma to issue Public Notice which stated that based on dictates of Section 41, President had no option but to relieve former VP Sam-Sumana, of duties the man was purporting to be doing.

Section 41 is clearly stated to be the constitutional dictate which propelled President to take the action he did using his authority under Section 40. At no point in the Public Notice did the President cite any other section of Constitution than Sections 40 & 41.

However, it can further be recalled that Dr. Abdulai Conteh then openly damned President Koroma’s interpretation of Section 41. According to Conteh, the President was wrong to say that Section 41 has “continuous requirements” for a Vice-President.

Instead, Conteh asserted that Section 41 only applied when a VP was seeking to be voted in at elections and at no other time. Conteh’s position caused much condemnation for the President since Dr. Conteh was the Attorney-General when Constitution was enacted in 1991. Charles Margai had also joined to condemn. As destiny will however have it, Charles Margai in further trying to condemn appointment of new Vice-President Foh, inadvertently confirmed the accuracy of the interpretation of Section 41 by the President.

In sharp contrast to Abdulai Conteh, Lawyer Margai stated over the air that any Vice-President who does not possess a requirement of Section 41 will be “an illegal Vice-President”. Margai made this point when he tried to argue that new Vice-President Victor Foh did not meet requirements of Section 41 in (d).

However analysts have shown that, unlike the former VP who definitely lost straightforward requirement of subsection (b), the thought process by which Margai reached his conclusion against new Vice-President is tortuous, untenable and of no effect. One such analysis is published in this edition.