Except for those who are not conversant with the political history of this country or will agree with the fact that defection of cross carpeting by members or supporters from one political organ to the other is no new phenomenon.

And this happens mostly whenever the country gets closer to elections.

People decide to join other political parties mainly the governing administration for various reasons or benefits. Some, especially the bigwigs, often pitch tent with opposing ruling parties for future benefits including appointment to high positions while others the grassroots (gbogbo jaama) do so for instant benefit, to get what they can survive on today regardless which way the outcome of the election goes.

Defections to other political parties in the recent past have not been genuine and that is the very reason why supporters of especially the governing Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) should not throw themselves into wild celebrations before the election thinking that they have already won the elections that are yet to be held.

SLPP or any other political party should learn a lesson from the late Vice President Solomon Ekuma Berewa’s case, who, was deceived (big time) by the number of group of people who were declaring for him only a daily basis.

Had those defections been genuinely translated into votes, the old man would have won the election with landslide. But alas, the massive number of those “rejectionists” forced poor “Solo B” as he was fondly called to make a ‘bogus’ pronouncement that even if one person votes he was certain to win but he ended up crying foul.

Political parties therefore now need to learn experience from that lesson that even though politics is about number but should be a useful or genuine one, otherwise complacency will play a very big part at the end that will lead to any party’s failure.