Sierra Leoneans from all walks of life representing the various political parties have agreed and are demanding that Electoral Commissioner Mohamed K. Konneh should be prosecuted.

Mohamed Konneh, not the president, should be the focus for any and everything that has to do with the disputed electoral results he announced after the 24th June, 2023 elections, they said.

For all his faults, president Bio is only acting as president based on Konneh’s announcement of results that others that tallied the day’s polling results have cried and continue to cry down.

It must be noted here that the ECSL is an independent body that takes no instructions from the government. The responsibility for the outcome of the announcement that president Bio won the elections rests squarely on the shoulders of the electoral commissioner.

The nation can be saved the wasted time and money that will be needed for any dialogue between the APC, SLPP and our international friends if Konneh was to release the elections results as they’ve been demanded by the main opposition APC and those that observed the elections and tallied the polling station level results from across the country.

By refusing to do this, Konneh has caused the near shutting down of the government, the immobility of institutions and the international disrepute that our government is enduring at the time. His action is hurting everyone, the APC, the SLPP, and the country. By refusing to release the results Mr Konneh has contributed to the destabilising of the state and forced people onto the streets in protest.

By this action alone we can put responsibility for the lives lost as a result of his announced presidential elections results on Mohamed Konneh.

The citizens who voted on 24 June and those that tallied the results have said that Konneh’s refusal to release the elections results in granular form has added to the sufferings of the people and disgrace to the government. The whole nation is experiencing pangs of insecurity as we see daily on our streets across the country heavily armed members of the state’s security, day and night roadblocks with rumours of people plotting to overthrow the government because they are not convinced that Bio won the presidential elections.

Who should be blamed for all this, if not Mohamed Konneh?

Everything that has happened since the announcement of the 24th June elections result should be blamed on Mohamed Konneh. And if there is anybody that should face prosecution even at the ICC for all the human and other rights abuses that have happened post 24 June, it must be Mohamed Konneh.

In his arrogance Konneh claimed that he is not under legal obligation to release the results. But in the interest of peace and national unity, Mr Konneh can release the results. The belief however is that he is refusing to release the results because should he do so it would expose him for being incompetent, biased and partisan. It would also show that the ECSL under Konneh’s leadership is a clear and imminent threat to national security.

Mohamed Konneh has brought the nation to the brink of war. President Bio aptly puts it when he said the announcement of elections results could bring about a coup. The reason for this is because if the people are not pleased with an election result announcement, they could be forced onto the streets and so destabilise the state.

This is what the state security is trying to prevent with all the armed soldiers and police officers across the country. President Bio is not responsible for this state of affairs. We are where we presently are because the electoral commissioner is refusing to release the results he announced, failing to show us the math involved in president Bio being declared the winner. Blame for our current state of insecurity is reserved for Konneh, who has been behaving in a criminally negligent manner that has continued to threaten the state of peace, unity and national cohesion across the country.

When the dust is settled and the polling data released, it will be proven that indeed our international elections observers and the main opposition APC are right, that the wrong polling data was announced, which result has left us in a standstill, our economy in a free fall, with peace clearly missing, and rumours of civil unrest, all because Mohamed Konneh, not Maada Bio, not the Sierra Leone Police or Armed Forces, is refusing to release to the voters of Sierra Leone the polling data on how they voted and how his boss ‘won’ his re-election.

This refusal of itself, apart from all the lives lost and jobs and properties destroyed as a result of Konneh’s announced presidential results, is criminal in its own right as Konneh is refusing to do as his real bosses, the people of Sierra Leone, are demanding. Konneh must face prosecution for bringing the country to the brink of a civil conflict by failing to release the elections result for which the whole nation is severely polarised.

Only God has been saving us from the fate of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Gabon, Guinea, Sudan, among others. Konneh is responsible for all this, not Maada Bio and the SLPP.

Credit: Saccoh Lewis