By Ahmed Kamara
Lansana Dumbuya – Attacked on the orders of the President
Security forces in Sierra Leone were given orders by the President to attack the newly elected Secretary General of the Opposition APC party, Mr Lansana Dumbuya, who along with his entourage were left badly beaten suffering cuts and wounds all over their bodies . They were told by the security forces that they were ordered to beat up the scribe and his entourage by the Head of State. The thuggery of President Julius Maada Bio is well documented, and as elections are fast approaching, regime change has become the only inevitable option that will save this small West African nation from the scourges of another brutal civil war.
How and why the people of Sierra Leone voted a maniac into the presidency is anyone’s guess – but recent dissenting voices within the ruling SLPP party reveal a serious bout of frustration that has griped the grassroots who have been left disappointed at a leader who promised them so much but has delivered so little. And who seems to be more concerned about holding on to power than to seek the welfare of the masses.
The election of Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara as the new flagbearer of the opposition APC has ushered in a renewed hope of change as the country looks forward to a new political dawn in May of this year when the electorate will be given a chance to correct the rather egregious error that was made in 2018 when a barbaric despot was allowed to take the reigns of power after a relatively calm decade under the stewardship of President Ernest Bai Koroma.
Sierra Leone has endured 5 years of tyranny under Julius Maada Bio, as opposition party members have been hounded and trumped up charges brought on innocent people to thwart the democratic process and stifle political participation in a free and fair democratic dispensation. The country’s economy is in serious decline as most of the economic gains of the previous APC government have been all but reversed by a president who it seems the only form economics he knows is kleptocracy as the state’s wealth is plundered leaving the country reliant on budgetary support from Britain’s DFID to survive.
The shocking fact is that the British and American diplomats on the ground are privy to what is going on and have chosen to turn their faces the other way as the country disintegrates into anarchy. Julius Maada Bio should be brought to account for the heinous and barbaric crimes he has perpetrated against the people of Serra Leone
The attack on the newly elected Secretary General was unprovoked and a reckless demonstration of cowardice from a man who has shown time and again that he is unfit for purpose and cannot win an election through the democratic process. The international community including diplomats on the ground should ensure that opposition politicians are protected from the brutal hands of this dictator and are free to travel around the country going about their own business.
With the help of the inept Anti-Corruption Commissioner, the President has slowly rounded up all his main political opponents who he sees as threats to his ambition of securing a second term of office. Apparently the biggest threat the President seems to face are the people who today came out in their hundreds of thousands to welcome Dr Samura Kamara as he returned to the capital Freetown, from his successful election as the flagbearer of the APC party in the northern town of Makeni.
The people seem determined to reverse the mistake of voting for a man whose determination to wreck the country’s economic and political life is only second to his ambition to gain power once more even if it means rigging the ballots at the next elections.
