By Alfred Peter Conteh

The main opposition party, the All People’s Congress (APC), has strongly condemned the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) led government’s decision to establish new districts and cities across the country.

The part calls the move as reckless, irresponsible, and a politically motivated thing.

In a strongly worded press release, the APC accused the SLPP government of attempting to manipulate Sierra Leone’s administrative structure for partisan advantage.

They ssid the decision lacks both a legal foundation and credible data to support such  sweeping changes.

“This is nothing but a dangerous provocation and an attempt to manipulate the country’s governance structure for partisan gain,” the APC stated.

The APC insists that any administrative restructuring particularly one as consequential as the creation of new cities and districts must be grounded in credible, inclusive, and transparent census data. However, according to the APC, the national census process has not been properly initiated.

“They argued that there are no preliminary results, no valid data, and the technical committees which are supposed to guide the process with integrity and also inclusivity has not been fully followed” the statement read.

“And to make matters worse, we, the APC, have been deliberately excluded from the census technical committee.”

The APC emphasized that such exclusionary practices undermine the democratic process and compromise the legitimacy of any decisions derived from incomplete or one sided data collection efforts.

The backlash from the APC follows a recent announcement by the Minister of Local Government and Community Affairs, Tamba Lamina, announcing that the government had approved the creation of two new districts

Bandajuma District, to be impacting areas within Bo and Pujehun Districts and

Kpanguma District which cuts across communities in Kenema and Kailahun Districts.

Furthermore, government says, Freetown will be divided into two separate districts, while the Western Area Rural District will be split into three.

Lungi, in the north, known for its strategic location and proximity to Sierra Leone’s international airport, will also be elevated to a city status.

The APC’s criticism highlights growing political tensions between the two major parties as Sierra Leone grapples with issues of governance reforms, national development, and inclusive types concerns.

The APC has called for an “immediate halt” to the implementation of these changes until a credible census is conducted and all political stakeholders are meaningfully engaged.

It could be recalled that, before the 2023 general elections in Sierra Leone, the SLPP government attempted to conduct a midterm census, but a redflag too was raised by the same APC sighting that the SLPP had wanted to use the midterm census for political gain by creating more districts in their favour.

And as a result of that decision government pinned on most donor partners, understandably, backed off support on the eve of that census years back.