I’ll strengthen existing relations between Sierra-Leone, Nigeria, says Samara

Presidential candidate of All Peoples Congress (APC) in the March election holding in Sierra-Leone, Dr. Samura Kamara, on Wednesday gave an assurance that he would work to strengthen existing relationship between Nigeria and his country if elected as Sierra-Leonean president in the coming poll.

Kamara gave this assurance in Lagos while speaking with newsmen, and further assured that his country would also continue to work in the collective interest of the ECOWAS, the African Union (AU), United Nations (UN) and other international bodies in addressing challenges of different nature under his leadership.

The APC presidential candidate, who expressed optimism about his winning the contest based on the quality of dividends of democracy that incumbent President Ernest Bi Koroma had delivered to the people of the country as well as what he and his party planned to execute as programmes, said Sierra-Leone would always look up to Nigeria and work with her both in areas of multilateral and bilateral relations.

This was just as he noted that for the past 10years, President Koroma had really increased Sierra-Leone’s voice, representation and legitimacy on the international arena whether at the level of ECOWAS, AU, UN and other international organizations.

He added that in all these bodies, both Sierra-Leone and Nigeria had actually worked together in trying to strengthen both their bilateral and multilateral cooperation in having consensus in some of the decisions that had been taken.

“African Union but even at the sub-regional level at ECOWAS and other bodies. And in these organizations, Sierra-Leone and Nigeria have actually worked together in trying to strengthen both their bilateral and multilateral cooperation in having consensus in some of the decisions that have been taken.

“I think over the last 10years, Sierra-Leone has through President Koroma really increased the voice, representation and legitimacy on the international arena whether at the level of United Nations as well as the African Union but even at the sub-regional level at ECOWAS and other bodies. And in these organisations, Sierra-Leone and Nigeria have actually worked together in trying to strengthen both their bilateral and multilateral cooperation in having consensus in some of the decisions that have been taken.

“And we’ve looked up to Nigeria as a country for mentoring because of the depth Nigeria has in terms of its knowledge and in terms of its capacity in the international arena. We shall continue to look up to Nigeria and we shall continue to work with her,” he said.

Speaking on his programmes for the Sierra-Leonians if elected, Kamara, who commended the incumbent President Koroma on his achievements in areas of infrastructure, energy, education, health, among others, said he was poised on building on the achievements on ground if elected into office, rather than doing things differently and making feel worse about their situation.

“I would not call it differently, but the first thing that I plan to do is to secure properly the achievements of President Koroma has put in place, we don’t want a reversal. And they are the achievements in infrastructure, in roads, energy, water and of course, achievements in diversifying in agriculture, achievements in human and capital development, health and education.

“We’ve made tremendous achievements. So the first challenge is to secure those because we don’t want to make anybody worse off than one is now.

“Another thing is that you look for a way of scaling up, how much roads can you build because those are essentials for development, infrastructure? And then how much energy can you supply to give the people greater opportunity and the confidence to go out there and venture for themselves, especially because businesses require energy to thrive?” Kamara said.

“But especially in the last 10years, we have really built a lot of ground on sustaining peace and security, stability in the country, that is something you have to earn to secure because this is what everybody looks forward to,” the presidential hopeful added.