Sierra Leone Sports: Athletics family agrees to bury the hatchet after final peace talk

Members of the Sierra Leone Athletics Association (SLAA) have unanimously agreed to put their differences aside over their power struggle, in a bid to stop the infighting that has divided their membership for the past one year.
The two factions, each led by, Martin Bangura and Abdul Karim Sesay, held final peace talks with the National Olympic Committee of Sierra Leone on Tuesday 19th September 2017 to solve the impasse once and for all.
It could be recalled that several efforts were made to bring both parties together, but the issue of executive power sharing affected the process.
With regards the agreement for lasting peace, the Abdul Karim Sesay faction accepted to offer four major positions which includes, Vice President, Assistant Secretary General, Organizing Secretary and Public Relations Officer to the Martin Bangura faction.
The President of the association, Abdul Karim Sesay said as a leader one should always learn to maintain peace and sanity for the good of the athletes, saying good leadership was what he exhibited to his opposition who were very angry with him over the past months.
His leadership qualities he said were what were able to convince them to see reason and join him to develop athletics.
“Athletics is bigger than us; the sport is the most important thing that brings us together. The infighting over election matters will not take us anywhere, instead it will hinder the progress of the poor athletes who are training on a daily basis for competitions,” Sesay remarked.
He warned, “Anyone who might have the evil intention of derailing the peace which we have fought hard for, will be dealt with by the association and the government of Sierra Leone. Athletics is for all of us, so we must ensure we work together to achieve our goal of making the sport better again.”
On his part, Martin Bangura, maintained that they are willing to accept the offer and are ready to work as a united family to promote the development of the sport for the sake of the athletes, the coaches and the fans.
Questioned whether he was interested in the position of Vice President, Bangura asserted, “I can’t submit to that now, I will meet with my colleagues and inform them about the various positions offered to us, thereafter, we will take a decision.”
Meanwhile, Coach Alim Kamara of Camp Canada Athletics Club (CCAC) said, the peace message was warmly received by all coaches because their work will now move smoothly without any personal attachment.
The infighting he said affected their coaching career as most of them downed their whistles to avoid the brawl and personal vendetta against each other, adding that now that they’ve got what they describe as lasting peace, they will storm the various fields to train more athletes with a very steady mind.
By Magdalene S. Konneh
Thursday September 21, 2017.