By Joseph A. Kamanda

News of the appointment of a new leadership of the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) hit the local and international media landscape late Wednesday 27 July 2022 evening, with shock, surprises and mixed feelings. It took many by storm on how President Julius Maada Bio reached the difficult decision to fire a man who was widely considered as his ‘blue eye-boy’.

Interestingly, the President and the outgone Inspector General of Police, Ambrose Michael Sovula, hailed from the same district and region. Both are also strong members of the same Roman Catholic congregation.

Yet President Bio swallowed the bitter pills and hit A. M. Sovula hard with his sledgehammer at a critical time like this, when many believe no south-easterner would go jobless under the Bio-led SLPP rule, with barely few months to the June 24, 2023 elections.

President Bio’s action in firing his Catholic and Bonthe brother has not really come as a surprise to those who have been following the poor performance of the former police chief, who had long exceeded his retirement period, though he had been serving on borrowed time with the full backing of President Bio.

Ambrose Michael Sovula was Wednesday 27 July 2022 sacked, finally sent to retirement and replaced by William Fayia Sellu, as the new Inspector General of Police, according to an official public notice declaration from the Office of the President at State House in Freetown. The announcement clearly stopped the former IGP, Sovula, from receiving unlawful orders from above. Back to basics and best wishes to you in your renewed civilian life.

Sovula was removed along with his former Deputy Inspector General of Police, Elizabeth Turay and Mamadu Mannah, who are now both serving in different capacities at the Ministry of Internal Affairs; they too were disgracefully fired from the SLP.

The sacking of the erstwhile IGP emerged following police and authorities’ collective delays and deliberate mishandlings of a suspicious 40-feet contraband container that was allegedly imported into the country by only God knows who, via the Queen Elizabeth II Quay. Instead of scanning it at the port, police under the past leadership of IGP Sovula escorted the container to the Kingtom Police Mess for inspection. And Amid firing public suspicions and manhunt everywhere to ascertain its exact content, all eyes were and continue to remain widely opened anxiously awaiting to know and see what was in the forty-foot container. To blind fool the public, police said the container was loaded with frozen chicken wings and gizzards. That can be hardly contested by anybody, though emerging reports from the port indicate that the real ‘cocaine’ container was reportedly parked near a paint factory at Cline Town. So the said frozen food container’s relocation to the Kingtom Police Mess, with the help of senior police personnel, using a presidential aide’s vehicle particulars, raised more alarms and suspicion of deliberate Police collaboration and protection of the suspected drugs container, which might have led to the firing of the former police boss.

And following Sovula’s sacking, AIG Sylvester Momoh Koroma, the Aide-Camp to President Bio, was also immediately transferred from State House to Police Headquarters. Reports have it that during the relocation of the suspected container, from the port to Kingtom Police Mess, it was reportedly covered up by the vehicle licence plate of the Aide-Camp to President Bio, AIG Sylvester Momoh Koroma.

Koroma used his official vehicle registration number SLP 333 to shield the real identity of the suspicious container from the port to the police lodge, where it was finally checked by the police as if the management of Sierra Leone Port Authority does not have capacity to scan containers anymore.

At Kingtom Police Mess, the former IGP Sovula had a verbal scuffle with the Minister of Information, Mohamed Rahman Swaray, over delays in informing the public about the exact content of the container, to which Mr Sovula replied that it was a security engagement and he must be given time to handle and look into the issue well with high level of professionalism.

Coupled with other blunders that might have certainly led to the much delayed sacking of the former incompetent police chief, was his unprofessional conduct in law enforcement, and how he has been poorly and unfairly relating with certain alleged offenders, especially opposition politicians, all in the unprincipled name of orders from above. Recent raids of drug cartels within and around central Freetown, huge catches were made, but the former police chief is alleged to have extorted large quantum of moneys from alleged dealers and traffickers. The social media was and continue to be awash with the news and trending comments on the extortionist’s raid, even though no traditional media including Forum published it. The former police boss ended up exposing some high profiled people believed to be linked with higher offices in the country.

That post-operation reactions from State House sounded adversely in the Wednesday 27^th July 2022 public notice that marked the end of tour of duties of Sovula and Co in the SLP. And with him proceeding to retirements, are former Deputy Inspector General of Police, Elizabeth Turay and Amadu Mannah, who have been brought under the canopies of their bosses at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. That speaks volumes to the facts that the former police leaders were not at their best on their previous jobs at George Street. As it was widely observed, it was under the collective police leadership that drug abuse became the order of the day, to a point that kush, tramadol and cannabis can be used anywhere in public without police action, not to talk of their proliferations across the country. It is highly optimistic that the new man at the helm of affairs will make all these things of the past.    

Though Sovula’s removal from the SLP is not as serious as examining his legacies, if any, it is also relevant to project expectations to the incoming IGP, William Fayia Sellu. These are some of the major concerns he should prepare himself to address as the country is fast approaching the June 24 2023 multi-tier elections, for the masses are expecting much professional and democratic policing from IGP Sellu prior, during and even after the elections.

Moreover, the very least of public concerns starts with the professional and objective enforcement of the laws of the land without, fear or favour, considering everyone being equal before the law. So IGP Sellu in the execution of his delicate duties, must take into cognisance that in as much as he remains answerable to the Government of the day, as any civil servant would always say, must play by the rules, principles and values of professional democratic policing. Policing  in the interest of all, rather than just being a mere regime force commander, as opposed to what his predecessor, Sovula did throughout his four years six months of very poor leadership in the SLP.

On the final welcome note to the incoming Inspector General of Police William Fayia Sellu, it is highly expected that he would meet the policing needs and expectations of the nation’s growing democracy, in that he enforces the law with equal opportunities accorded to whoever deserves it, irrespective of one’s social, economic, political status in society. From the political front, the new IGP William Fayia Sellu, is not expected to be trampling on the constitutional rights of the citizenry of the nation by denying the people peaceful protests, as Sovula has been doing.

Also required from the new police boss is the maximum use of fire arms in crowd control approaches. The police personnel are also not expected to be extorting moneys from road users such as driver, commercial and tricycle riders, as it is happening now on the roads everywhere in the country in the unprofessional name of ‘booking.’ Mind you, booking by drivers to run faulty vehicles cleared by the police causes fatal accidents almost on daily basis. It is therefore worthy to note that these, among dozens of so many other issues the SLP is confronted with, are set awaiting your leadership to be addressed appropriately. To you Mr William Fayia Sellu, congratulations, welcome and best wishes at the new level though it is the final stage in your tour of duty.