By Pa-Dikali
This is unprecedented! For the first time, in recent history of Sierra Leone, for a sitting President to be scolded by a partisan crowd, in an open air. His Excellency President, Julius Maada Bio, would certainly not be a happy man after such sweet/bitter experience in the diamond-rich Kono.
In full glance of such crowd, President Bio was certainly taken aback with the outburst of young people demonstrating in his presence, for the abysmal hardship, hunger and the acute blackout, the people of Kono are facing since 2018, a political commentator told We Yone last evening. Fragmented APC operatives in Kono have been criticized by many for given a field day to the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) executives members and government appointees, to rig the recently concluded Ward 091 bye-election, in Bangabaya village, Sandoh chiefdom. It could be a dismay to the President. The hired crowd, full of young people, could not accommodate deceits of increased electricity, economic and infrastructural gains the SLPP is claiming to have achieved in Kono. Unlike before, the so-called city, is now swimming in acute blackout.
The imported crowd couldn’t mice their words, yelling about the hardship, hunger and acute blackout, Kono is suffering since President Julius Maada Bio assumed the mantle of leadership of the country in 2018. This development had sent shockwaves to officials of SLPP in Kono, as to whether they would get away after deceiving the President over his popularity in Kono. Deputy Organizing Secretary of the All Peoples Congress, Karamoh Kabba, on the day of polls updated the public about the situation at Bangabaya, which he revealed, the SLPP changed the peace and quietness.
He further revealed: “The APC and C4C polling agents caught a woman who voted with a voter ID card from another Ward. She was handed over to the police. We asked for the identification of the NEC officer who aided the process for the woman to vote,’’ he revealed, adding “In the presence of the LUC and his team of police, Laurence Kai Mbayo, deputy minister of sport, trooped in with SLPP thugs, who were all unaccredited. They heaped insult and assault on Ibrahim Sesay, Richard A Koniga and my very self in the presence of the police.’’
‘‘They commanded the police to take our phones from us on false accusation that we took photos of the woman who had voted illegally. All this happened in the presence of EU and NEW observers,’’ Kabbah said, further saying, ‘‘the police literarily used undue power to force us out of the centre with a police escort leaving behind an exposed centre to rigging’’. Philip Tehtehma Tondoneh, deputy minister of works was permanently stationed at Yaryah, while Kai Laurence Mbayo was permanently stationed at Bangabaya organizing and executing vote rigging in broad day light, Kabbah noted while saying, he notified the IGP Sovula’s over policing of Ward 091 bye-election, pointing out the unholy role of the police, aiding and abetting vote rigging in favour of the SLPP. He also reported that the NEC Kono District Elections Manager and his team are simply lame in this arrangement with some even facilitating the vote rigging as in Bangabaya.
