FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) – Sierra Leone’s opposition party on Saturday condemned the decision to expel Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana from the ruling party.
The announcement came as Sam-Sumana was one week into a self-imposed three-week quarantine, following the death of one of his body guards of Ebola. Under Sierra Leone’s constitution, Sam-Sumana remains vice president of the country.
The announcement that Sam-Sumana was kicked out of the ruling party, the All Peoples Congress, came late Friday after a meeting of the party’s National Advisory Council, according to the national broadcaster, the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation.
Sam-Sumana was expelled for several reasons including allegations that he presented a fake Master’s degree certificate and that he was involved in the formation of a new political party, according to the broadcast news item.
Sam-Sumana did not immediately respond to his expulsion from the party or the allegations against him.
The main opposition party, the Sierra Leone Peoples Party condemned the move against Sam-Sumana.
The ruling party’s action against Sam-Sumana is “fanning the flames that will erupt into a constitutional crisis in our fragile democracy”, the opposition party’s national Secretary General Sulaiman Banja Tejan-Sie told The Associated Press on Saturday.
“This is most untimely at a time when this country is slowly recovering from the debilitating Ebola scourge and it is inhuman to expel the sitting vice president of the country at a time when he is in self-imposed quarantine, helping in our common cause to fight Ebola.”
