On 11.26.2023, Sierra Leoneans awoke to news of gunfire in the country’s capital, Freetown. As of this writing, 11.28.2023, Julius Maada Bio, the man currently holding on to illegitimate power as president of Sierra Leone, and his information spin doctors have crafted a twisted narrative of the events of that day.
This event took place against the backdrop of a demand by the main opposition party, the APC, for Mr. Bio to release the hundreds of political prisoners he has held at the Pademba Road prison and others since 2022.
Election observers like the European Union, the Carter Center, and the Sierra Leone National Elections Watch agreed that Mr. Bio did not win the June 24, 2023 presidential election. The agreement for Mr. Bio to release political prisoners came from a peace dialogue between him and the opposition APC party who disputed the results of the elections.
But on the eve of the day such prisoners were to be released, Mr. Bio orchestrated an event he has still refused to name. Was it an attempted coup detat? Was it an insurgency? Was it a mutiny? Nobody but Mr. Bio knows.
On that day, Sierra Leoneans saw well-choreographed video footage of activities by soldiers and civilians that only Mr. Bio and his government can describe. We even saw videos of the torture of a former police officer, Soriba, the killing of the bodyguard of former president Ernest Koroma, and a former soldier popularly known as “Leather Boot.”
Their false narrative of this event is now on the world media as the truth. However, the facts are far from Mr. Bio and his government’s false narrative.
For instance, the BBC West Africa Correspondence Mayeni Jones, on 11.27.23, reported Mr. Bio’s government version, saying that armed men had tried to break into an armory at a military base near the president’s home, then attacked two of the city’s central prisons, releasing some of the inmates.
The use of the operative word “tried” in this BBC report’s opening sentence begs one fundamental question: ‘Did the “Armed men” succeed when they tried to break into the armory?’ Even the Sierra Leone police, in a Public Notice circulated on 11.27.2023 used the word “attempted” to describe the action of the so-called armed men.
However, reporting on the so-called prison break, Umaru Fofanah stated that the assailants tried to use RPG launchers to break prison gates
Where did the armed assailants get RPGs if their raid of the armory was unsuccessful? Were they already routinely in possession of RPGs as army officers?
Regrettably, much like Mr. Bio had absolute control over the events of 11.26.23, he also wields unchallenged control over the narrative disseminated across the global media landscape. In Sierra Leone, the absence of independent investigations and unbiased journalism leaves the populace entirely at the mercy of Mr. Bio.
Today, the fate of Sierra Leoneans rests precariously in the hands of Mr. Bio’s words and actions, leaving the people in a state of vulnerability and uncertainty.
Anyone following this news would have noticed that everything on BBC or Reuters has the most credible Sierra Leonean BBC reporter, Umaru Fofanah, as the source. However, the government’s narrative is the only source of information Mr. Fofanah is sharing with the world media.
Umaru Fofanah has also reported that 20 people died in the 11.26.23 skirmish, and 1890 inmates have escaped from the prison and at large.
Since becoming Sierra Leone’s president in 2018, Sierra Leoneans have come to know Mr. Bio and his government for telling blatant lies to the people and the international community. Therefore, we know very well that when Mr. Bio says 20 died, he probably means to say he has killed over 100. For instance, he told a lie in a BBC interview recently that ‘no shots were fired into the APC office on June 25, 2023,’ when, in fact, video footage showed his presidential guards firing several shots into that office, resulting in the death of a beloved nurse, Matron MaHawa Dumbuya (May her gentle soul rest in Eternal Peace).
Also, most Sierra Leoneans have expressed their suspicion that Mr. Bio has probably already killed the political prisoners he is required to release. Telling the media that nearly 2000 inmates have escaped may mean that he is no longer accountable for the political prisoners the opposition party was asking him to release. It also means that Mr. Bio is using the same event to establish grounds to justify his impending arbitrary arrest of more Sierra Leoneans and more extrajudicial killings.
Soriba’s brother told his story on the YouTube news channel Wi Yard. He said that Soriba was never near the events of 11.26/2023 but at home caring for his sick child. Nevertheless, he was sought out and captured by Mr. Bio’s soldiers from his home and taken to be tortured. As of this date, his family does not know whether or not Soriba is still alive.
This is going to be the fate of many more innocent Sierra Leoneans, as the world sits and watches these genocided practices in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leoneans are now worried about the repeat of the Sobel war period when Maada Bio and his colleagues ruled the country after their 1994 coup d’état. In that era, citizens were encouraged to point out rebel members in their communities. This practice resulted in the wrongful extra-judicial killing of many innocent citizens at the hands of their neighbors or marauding soldiers.
Survivors of that era tell harrowing stories like, ‘If somebody owed you money at that time, you were better off not asking for payment because when you went to them to collect the debt, the debtor would scream your name, saying you are a rebel. This name-calling would often result in mob justice, and you could be beaten to death before anyone proved you were not a rebel.’
Now, it is that very era Mr. Julius Maada Bio, in his second reign as a coup detat leader (electoral this time), appears to be dragging the people of Sierra Leone back into. His escalating onslaught on the nation evokes chilling echoes of the past.
MAMA SALONE ~ Lioness of the West Coast 