Monrovia – Ishmeal Sheriff aka Tamba the Mayonnaise is just one of many die-hard grassroot members of the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change feeling left in the cold.
In the build-up to the 2017 elections, Sheriff sent a clear message to the party when he decided to run as an independent in the Electoral District No. 8, currently occupied by Rep. Acarous Moses Gray.
At least 22 candidates contested and Sheriff finished fourth amassing 2,665 votes for 9.8 percent of the votes.
Now he says, he setting his sights on a shot at the Senate, adding to a rising number of potential contenders looking to challenge the incumbent, Abraham Darius Dillon(Liberty Party, Montserrado County).
Last month, some of the party’s youths urged Sheriff to consider contesting the forthcoming mid-term Senatorial Election for Montserrado County.
Sheriff told FrontPageAfrica Wednesday that he is preparing and galvanizing youths within the party for a strong run.
From the look of things, Sheriff appears ready to once again run as an independent as the party appears to be looking outside his direction.
“I do not see a seriousness on the part of our leaders to identify with many of us who struggled and stood in the sun and rain,” Sheriff, a comedian and entertainer, who has a strong grip on the party’s youth, said Wednesday.
Sheriff who assumed the name, The Mayonnaise during the height of the civil war, bringing comic relief to a nation torn apart by war, recalls: “You had people from Bardnersville and other places living in fear. You know after the war, there were a lot of evildoers, comedy was a way of bringing people together. My Tamba is a Mayonnaise, not a butter, but then understand that, Mayonnaise is sour more than butter. So, if you continue butting people, when the butter and the Mayonnaise meet, understand that I will give you the sour side of the Mayonnaise.”
Sheriff laments that he felt humiliated during the primary process in 2017 and while he is still a member of the CDC, he is willing to do so again.
Sheriff ran independent in 2017 even though he was the party’s national chair for Ways, Means and Finance. “That’s my position in the CDC, but I chose to run as an independent.”
The reason, he says is that the CDC was not formed to marginalize people. “The CDC was formed to work in line with the down-trodden, to ensure perfect leadership, to serve as a bridge between the marginalized and the marginalizers.This is no time for payback, to serve as a bridge between the elites and the down-trodden. If we see people going against the norms of the CDC, we will not sit there; we will move to ensure that we get them out.”
Just as he attempted in 2017, Sheriff is hoping his eye for the creative arts would propel him to the Senate because he says he wants to change the dynamics. “What you need is honesty, humanity and innovation, working together for the community good of our nation. To achieve together is to understand together and work together.”
Sheriff who spent 34 years in the field of journalism has also spent much of his life as involved in movie and television production under the Cross-Atlantic network. He is CEO of his own company, called My Own Incorporated that has provided logistics support to the US embassy.
With so many members of the ruling party eyeing the Senate, political watchers say, the party risk splitting votes in its attempt to regain control of Montserrado County.