By Mohamed Osman Turay (MOT)
There are some questions that, when asked, say more about the person who asked than the answer. “Who is Dr. Ibrahim Bangura, and where has he been in the APC?” Now, that, my friends, is not a riddle. It is a case of memory loss in a garden of red that has always known its sons.
With the calm confidence of a statesman who trades in truth, not noise, Dr. Ibrahim Bangura stood before his people and planted the facts, row by row. “I didn’t join the APC,” he said with a half-smile, “I was born into it.”
And what a birth it was, rooted in legacy, cultivated in loyalty. His father, a pillar of the Youth League, rose to become the Organising Secretary of the party. His was more than politics, it was purpose. The party office on Pademba Road became more than a stronghold; it became the backdrop where love blossomed. It was there that his father met the woman who would become his wife. That love gave birth to Ibrahim Bangura. Yes, literally and politically, he is a child of the All People’s Congress.
At the age of 15, when most boys were chasing footballs and fantasies, he was forming “The Rising Sun”—a movement of young minds, the children of the APC, committed to carrying the torch. By 2000, he was in university, establishing and leading the APC Student Movement. And let us not forget: that was when the party had been pushed into political darkness. Many who had dined with the APC fled when the music stopped. But not him. While others were washing their hands clean of red, he was rolling up his sleeves.
He invited then-candidate Ernest Bai Koroma to Fourah Bay College in 2002 to campaign among the youth. Candudate Ernest Koroma would become president in 2007. But unlike others who lined up to collect rewards, Ibrahim Bangura chose a different path. He left to further his studies, sharpening the tools he would later use in service of the APC and the nation.
In 2018, when the party faced the bitter taste of electoral loss, he didn’t run from the fire, he walked into it. He offered himself for Secretary General. But when the NRM storm broke out, a rebellion of young cadres against the party elders—, t was Dr. Bangura the leadership called. He had to choose between personal ambition and party peace. He chose peace.
With the wisdom of a mediator and the integrity of a patriot, he helped mend the breach. No shouting. No showboating. Just service.
Since then, he has been a tireless contributor, serving on the Constitutional Review Committee, the Manifesto Committee, and strategic platforms ahead of both the 2018 and 2023 elections. The ink of his fingerprints is on the party’s very playbook.
So, when detractors whisper, “Where was he?” the answer rings like a well-beaten drum: He was here before the applause, he stayed through the silence, and he will be here for the victory.
In a deeply personal moment during his address, Dr. Bangura returned to what matters most: his daughter, Petra. Bright-eyed, brilliant, full of dreams. “When I look at her,” he said, “I ask myself, what kind of Sierra Leone will she inherit?”
He spoke of a country where pregnant women in labour are thrown on the backs of okadas like sacks of grain, searching for hospitals that may not even have gloves. He lamented the poor transport systems and the lack of access to tertiary education, especially for the girl child. He condemned the cruelty of micro-credit traps, where women are harassed like criminals for defaulting on loans they were barely allowed to breathe through.
But he didn’t just lament. He offered hope. Not cheap, easy hope, the kind built on competence and compassion.
He made the string point that he does not want Sierra Leoneans to succeed because of their surname, or tribe, or party card. He want them to succeed because they are Sierra Leoneans, qualified, ready, and fair.
That was the heartbeat of his message. That every APC comrade is a brother or sister. That no one should insult another because of him. That when he becomes party leader in 2026, he will make space for all, including his opponents, because the work ahead is bigger than ego.
He closed with a soft thunder. Not bluster. Not bombast. But the unmistakable rumble of a man whose time has come.
