Mohamed Gibril Sesay
The contest for the APC’s 2028 flagbearer has begun long before any official declaration. It began through posture, movement, style, and the subtle work of positioning. What we are witnessing goes beyond being simply a competition of individuals. It is a clash of political types; it is about different ways of getting traction.I see seven broad categories and tendencies shaping this contest: the English-English Speakers, the Party Machine People, the Populists, the South-East Contenders, the People with Bases, People who had contested before and those clearly or in disguise talking about being endorsed by EBK. Some aspirants belong to more categories, but often, one or two dominate their efforts, and do the heaviest political work. That dominant trait becomes how the party and others read the flagbearer, evaluate them, and sort them out.Let’s now talk more about each of these tendencies and groupsThe English-English Speakers and Verb Agreement Crowd (VAC)This group of flag-bearer aspirant arrives fully dressed in grammar. Their sentences land correctly. Subject agrees with verb. CVs read like UN bios. Degrees sit neatly in chronological order.I like them. I speak-speak English too.But here is the small problem: you don’t speak English in a cookery shop. You don’t display your certificates at a junction like posters. This reminds me of a late friend’s relative. Master’s holder. Big academic thing in our teenage days. He hung his Master’s certificate bigly on the wall of his parlour. Anytime we were playing the type of football called Guinea Goal, teasing ourselves, or just being teenagers, he would point at the certificate and shout: “Look at this! Look at this! You unserious boys! If only you look at this certificate, you will become serious!”Ayyybo. Not that the certificate was not respected. Many of us who would become members of the Verb Agreement Crowd sort of did. But in the junction and the street, we preferred the people we shared roasted cassava with, or bread and kanda. The ones who spoke our slang. Not the man pointing at certificates.That tension is exactly what plays out in party politics. Politics in the APC is not a seminar or a courtroom, or a speak-speak business. The English speaker, often cheered on by the Verb Agreement Crowd, tends to confuse clarity of expression with clarity of connection.Let me make some distinction here. The Verb Agreement Crowd are not necessarily candidates themselves. They are the grammar audience: the book man dem and book ooman dem who listen for syntax before they listen for substance. They evaluate politics the way WAEC marks English – ticking correct tense, nodding at polished delivery, rewarding elegance of speech as though it were evidence of political depth. Many are fluent in what tar-gron people call English-English: the language of radio panels, hotel workshops, donor-funded PowerPoint slides. They know how to line up fashionable buzzwords: youth empowerment, gender equity, national cohesion, sustainable development. Ten to fifteen of these can be strung together beautifully, and book man dem and book ooman dem nod their heads in admiration. Perhaps you remember those men from our younger junction days – the ones who had lifted a few Bob Marley lines into their heads. They would seize our attention, shouting: “No woman no cry! There is ‘War in the east, war in the south!’ ‘Fire!’ For this is ‘Pimpers Paradise! Redemption Song!’ Don’t treat me ‘like puppet on a string! Emancipate yourself from mental slavery!” And we would hang our mouths in admiration. But when you listened closely, it was mostly incoherent mouthing, a joblo-jabla of barely understood phrases.That is exactly the kind of performance we hear today from many in the Verb Agreement Crowd. Strings of high-sounding expressions, delivered with confidence but thin on meaning. Even when they talk to very ordinary people in Krio, you would see their expressions sweating under the weight of what some musician call ‘big big English way day make we languish’. Or worse still, when they enter that affected mode – mesef day speak speak big English o, hehehe – of what people call “Bob Marley explanation without the lyrics.”Often, the Verb Agreement Crowd are involved in a delusional moral hierarchy or framing. Those who cannot properly “lollipop” their buzz words are often looked down on. A slip in grammar becomes a slip in credibility. Politics turns into an oral examination, with marks awarded for pronunciation and accent, and those heavily influenced by their L1 (or as we say, those with Themne, Mende, Limba, Loko in their teeth when they speak the acrolect English or Krio) are given low grades in the political calculations of the Verb Agreement Crowd. Aaaaa. So you see eh, I can speak-speak like the Verb Agreement Crowd; they are a company I also keep – That’s why you see this Crojimmy man seeking to impress by using the word acrolect above, which simply means a language or accent that is considered better than others.Come on, don’t get me wrong, I know many in the Verb Agreement Crowd mean well. But they are small in number, thin in structure, and the overwhelming number are largely disconnected from the ground game of party politics.The English speaker as flagbearer aspirant belongs to the same ecosystem as this crowd. They are part of one another’s audience. They praise each other’s interviews. They circulate each other’s articles. They dissect grammar on radio panels. They reinforce each other’s confidence. It becomes an echo chamber of correctness. And because that echo feels affirming, the English speaker invests disproportionate energy in refining interviews, crafting Facebook posts, and polishing arguments, when he should be building presence, relationships, and memory in the party’s bloodstream.The challenge here is practical, not intellectual. The Verb Agreement Crowd does not do ward work. They do not mobilise delegates. Most do not attend pull na doe, funerals, or commemorations of party members in constituencies. Busy professionals. Diaspora lives. Little patience for the slow, unglamorous labour of party cultivation. Yet this is often where the English speaker concentrates his political labour – inside grammar-friendly spaces – mistaking intellectual validation for political traction. The applause of the Verb Agreement Crowd sounds loud, but it rarely converts into delegates, ward loyalty, or votes. But oh, the delusion persists, the English speaker mistakes the support given to them by the verb agreement crowd as the support the country or ordinary people are giving them. They forget that it takes a lot more. The problem, therefore, may not be about being unfit for the presidency they ultimately seek. Many of the English speakers are capable, experienced, thoughtful, and individually better than the caboodle currently mis-governing the state. The problem is translation during their campaigns. Grammar begins to substitute for political work. Fluency becomes mistaken for connection. Correct sentences begin to feel like evidence of readiness.But hmmmm, when push comes to shove, in the chase for the foremost flagbearer poda poda, nor to so e kin be o. You don’t practice poda-poda run-run by perfecting your use of Uber Apps. That is mis-location. Because, hey in this Flagbearer race you now have to speak to rooms that are not listening for grammar. And you don’t’ shout ‘commodification’, or ‘jurisprudentiality’ or ‘legitimation’ in a market that runs on familiarity, loyalty, memory, and reciprocity. You cannot ‘big-word’ or ‘verb-agree’ your way into a delegate conference.In a cookery shop nobody asks for sustainable nutritional frameworks. They ask if the soup is ready and whether you know them. Pointing at blown up posters of certificates is baldhead in a bola-bola junction, and relying on the applause of the Verb Agreement Crowd is self imposed limitation.I have what I would call an “outside politics” relationship with many of the English speakers. One has been a friend for decades. We sabi provoke wesef. He is a man who likes to achieve and to be seen as achieving, and he would be an achieving president. Another has been an intellectual partner in the last few years, a solid younger chap with serious mental discipline. He will bring that to the presidency. Another is like a little brother, his home place is Fourah Bay where I grew up. And he’s great chap, with passion and energy. And God knows, our presidency needs that. A few of them we crossed paths with at university. One, from a minority ethnicity, is a data man, a strategic thinker, with a coherent governance programme he feels deeply passionate about. This country needs that type of president. There is also a lawyer and investment banker, from a family of siblings we have long respected. And there is my isten Krio man too, a solid intellectual without the arrogance that such achievement brings. We have shared personal moments, intellectual exchanges, home visits, laughter, and long conversations. We have also talked seriously, many times. About politics. I have told them to play to their strengths, not to borrowed styles. To gather the language of politics from the ground, not from dictionaries, theories, or hotel seminars. To connect their bios to common speech, to their own connections with people and with the party. To be visible. To show up. To speak with conviction. And most importantly, when they talk about the caboodle ruining (sorry, running) the country, to do so with clarity and courage, not with timid politeness. Politics rewards those who sound like they believe themselves. It rarely rewards those who are merely well spoken. Next, let’s talk about the Party Machine People 2. The Party Machine People These ones don’t impress you at first glance. They don’t sparkle on paper. But they know where the paper is kept. They understand the party. They know who was offended in 2005 and never forgot. They know which apology was accepted publicly and rejected privately. They know who controls which district executive, and who only pretends to. I see two people as mainly representative of this, one a former parliamentary leader and the other a former youth leader. They are not very loud. Nope. No. Rather, it is because they are legible to the system. They speak the party’s memory fluently. The party workers, the bolt and knot people who do the arduous tasks of going to the party offices recognizes them; those who hold party positions at ward, constituency, regional and special organs like the veterans, women and young congress, and those who are often called the ‘old wan dem’ know them by name, by face and by the party work they have done together. That recognition is a key asset.Now, the party machine people know that politics is less about speeches or grammar or even daily drama or turning to everyone who says ‘bra, we day for you’. That would be the political equivalent of listening to every voice in the market. They know politics speaks less in speeches in more in sequencing. Often, they avoid speaking in the ‘English spaces.’ They concentrate on party spaces, and are very fluent in the party linguistic registers or how to talk like an APC person in an APC gathering. They know who you greet first. Who you sit next to. Who you don’t mention. This is what is called tacit knowledge. It is a key asset. It is about what actually wins internal elections. They know the boots and laces of the party; where things tighten, where they loosen, and where they must never be pulled. They know the different types of players. They know whose word is solid, and whose word needs reinforcement through an extra network, and exactly which network that should be. They know who influences who, and who only looks influential. They know those who prefer others, but don’t mind them, and how to sit comfortably in that grey zone. Crucially, they know the kondo you don’t waste powder on. And those you must never ignore. They know who to meet, at what moment, and for what purpose. Some people you meet early. Some you meet late. Some you only meet when the numbers are almost settled. They understand timing as strategy. They also read noise very well. They can tell the difference between people whose words matter on their own, and those whose words only mean something when added to a trend. They spot the ones full of sound and fury, signifying very little support. These ones don’t confuse volume for value. This group rarely excites the crowd. But it calms the room where decisions are made. At this moment, they don’t chase ‘general elections’ popularity at this moment. What they do is chase and accumulate actual votes within the party. By the time others are making arguments, they are already counting. Thus, where the English speakers trust grammar, the party people trust memory. They have built reciprocity or ‘tinap for me ar tinap for me’ over time. Nor to theory o, but actual favours. They helped people when it mattered. They opened doors, fixed problems, created opportunities, and remembered who benefited. In party politics, this kind of help sits quietly and waits. If English speakers sometimes talk past the party, the party people speak within it. And they do it in highly sensible ways that we must not tehkeh. This brings me to a discussion of different kinds of sense in political life. At least three matter here: book sense, common sense, and party sense.Book sense is the language of theory, concepts, grammar, and credentials. Common sense is the language of lived experience, what people know from daily life, struggle, survival, and observation. Party sense is different again. It is the instinct for timing, loyalty, reciprocity, silence, presence, and internal arithmetic. It is knowing not only what to say, but when to say it, to whom, and who must never hear it.Some people are very good at translating their book sense into common sense. They can explain complex ideas in ways ordinary people understand. Others are good at translating their common sense into book sense. They can observe politics deeply, and then theorise it convincingly. But the real power in internal party struggles often lies with those who can translate book sense, but more so common sense into party sense. These are the ones who understand mood, memory, offence, loyalty, obligation, and opportunity. They read the room before the room speaks. They sense shifts before they become visible. They carry the real conversations long before microphones appear. Don’t tehkeh them. Next, we turn to the populists3. The Emerging Populists – the Jagaban/Ormodu Type This is almost a category of its own. The populist. A foremost example is Jagaban. It is not only about the money, it is also about the way he talks. He speaks like an isten man with money who talks his cash loud and clear at the junction. He dresses like it too. But in a way that shows his Muslim leanings, like a mosque chairman who can also hold his own in the expressions and registers of the dove-cut market argument. Backed by resources, generosity, and a certain muscular confidence, the kind of confidence you find in a man who has settled his own problems and now believes he can settle everybody else’s. His logic sounds confusing to English speakers because it is not trying to convince them. He speaks in the short term of common sense that is the way many ordinary people speak or make sense of things. Ferry nor day? Bo look me day go China right now for go arrange for buy them. He speaks of relief as coming now. He reduces governance to “I will handle it. now” And people believe him, because in everyday life, that is often how things actually get handled. When people are hungry, you don’t say I am gathering money to give someone to go get cooking things at the market. You say ‘look, den day pan pull eat’. He speaks directly to failure and neglect. Not abstract failure. Not policy failure. Not, hmmmm, wait let me find a big English words from my ‘Longer Oxford Diction. Okay I found it. He does not speak such words as hyperbureacratic failure’ or ‘technocratically induced failure’. He speaks in plain terms about physical neglect. The rotten ferry that didn’t come. The long queues and frustrations about transportation at PZ, Shell, Calaba Tong and costs of travelling from and to Bo, Kenema, Makeni, Port Loko, Blama and Falaba. There are two kinds of neglect he exploits very well. First, public service neglect of ferries, buses, infrastructure, basic movement. Things people experience daily. Second, patron service neglect – not being serviced, not being remembered, not being supported as a group or a place. His response to both is practical and visible. He provides. He shows up. His residences become places of real bra tin dem: cooking every day, people passing through, people eating, people feeling seen. Like that one he has at Malta Street, just over the street from Crojimmy where I grew up. My Crojimmy, Kossoh Tong, Fourah Bay relatives and friends tell me of the daily awujor that goes on there. They speak of him as their area man, since when he came down from Blama to attend school he lived in that area. He donates here and there, often, just loudly and consistently enough to be noticed. The masses like this. And that gives him an advantage. But populism attracts attention. And attention attracts appetite. Now you see some elites circling, like yiba, if we are being honest, wanting a cut. Some want a share of his stage. Others want access to his money. Are they committed to him? Hard to say. But they are committed to the opportunity he represents. He enjoys the attention. Who wouldn’t? And in enjoying it, he begins to shift gears. You see it in some of his emerging discourse. Praising Bio. Softening his edge. Thinking that a little something to some first lady initiative might buy him space, or slack, or even strategic favour. Many people make this mistake: believing that being a “preferred” APC candidate in SLPP eyes gives them an advantage. It doesn’t. The SLPP wants the SLPP to win. Not a Jagaban. Not an English speaker. Not a party man. Anybody thinking otherwise is confusing strategic accommodation with political love. Or you may think about how smooth talking rapists groom victims. And the SLPP, as the de-facto governing party will seek to put ‘san-san’ in the garri of the APC flagbearer race, in hopes that may make it uneatable during the 2028 elections. Meanwhile, Jagaban is silently derided by many English speakers. And especially their Verb Agreement Crowd. They tehkeh him. They think grammar is a substitute for brilliance, and English is evidence of fitness to rule. They laugh at his style, his confidence, his simplicity. This is the irony. Many of those Verb Agreement can speak good English but struggle to put down coherent ideas. But many of the things they say, if translated into Krio or any indigenous language, would sound utterly mundane, non-starters, empty calories, sometimes utter nonsense Jagaban’s ideas are not said with the big-big speak-speak English-English words like sustainability, GDP to tax ratio, legal framework. But Jagaban’s ideas land. They speak to neglect people feel, not neglect they analyze. That is his strength. And also his greatest challenge. Populists rise fast. Reminds of people who throw money in the air in poor places, and do it consistently. People rush to catch the money. Throw-up-in-the-air generosity attracts crowds. And crowds attract appetite. Soon, groups from all over begin to swarm in, sensing a generous feast. Everybody shows up. Everybody claims closeness. Everybody wants something. The problem is that generalist benevolence weakens loyalty of the particular. If you can give to every Jack and Jill, or Sallay and Sullay, a person needs not be particularly loyal to you, and in an intra-party contest.