In our Thursday 9th July June 2020 edition, Forum reported a front page story “Death Threaths For Slp Recruit”, on the intimidation of a Sierra Leone Police recruit in Yiffin, Nehnie Chiefdom, Koinadugu district, by some lawless clique gangs led by one ex-Operational Support Division officer, Yira Marah alias Beckham.
Yiffin Police Post falls under the operational mandate and command of Kabala Division.
It is over fifty miles stretch from the town to Kabala, and personnel deployed there are not working in isolation but under orders and commands of their supervisory division. They receive salaries from the consolidate revenue fund. So their safety comes first before they can be fully capacitated to protect lives and property as state security personnel.
The story narrated cliques’ confrontations with police personnel deployed in Yiffin, including a recruit working along with only one inspector, a constable and him, making them three personnel, policing over 500. Such a small number of personnel lack the capacity to police a large population. That is unfair on the part of the divisions and the entire SLP, in that the population is greater than the number of personnel deployed to police them, in a crime invested community, under the divisional leadership of the Local Unit Commander of Kabala division and Inspector General of Police Sovula.
Much as police presence is needed everywhere in the country to provide security for the protection of lives and property, the Executive Management Board of the Sierra Leone Police, should be as well mindful of that fact that personnel as human resources of the state, equally need protections from their superiors including the IGP, Mr Ambros Sovula and his team of regional, district and divisional leaderships of the SLP.
Of course Mr Sovula you have been a very diligent and professional police officer in your previous deployment postings even before your were elevation to the rank of an IGP.
Forum is of the strong believe that you will inject such spirits in the young personnel you are now leading instead of inflicting sufferings and exposures of the boys to insecurity through inadequate deployments of armed personnel and those of general duty in crime invested communities.
Rather, deploy more personnel and provide them with adequate resources as required.
Frankly speaking it is unimaginable for whole state security force as the SLP to deploy only three armless personnel to police a population of over five hundred people in the midst of irate drug peddling youth, who are always confronting the few police in Yiffin.
The police force forms a strong component of the country’s state security sector, thus their safety in any given circumstance should not be downplayed and compromised due to the failures of the various leaderships of the forces, in providing them an encouraging working environments, as presently being manifested in Yiffin.
The police recruit and the other two personnel, whose lives are being seriously threatened for enforcing Covid19 protocols in Yiffin, are being deployed there to perform police duties under the directives and orders of the SLP and not a private security. So they therefore need the blessings of bosses and they should be legitimately provided with the right tools to perform their duties as required by the laws governing the force.
IGP mind you have once been in similar positions before reaching your present peak in the SLP, so you should be as well mindful of what you are doing now to your subordinates in the force, so that your past will not hunt you, your interest including your sons, daughters and other relatives in the SLP when you shall have retired from the force come September this year as by law.
It is against these backdrops the Forum is craving your indulgence and the entire EBM to ensure that the leadership of the SLP its team protect personnel wherever they are deployed to perform police duties.
The country has invested so much resources on the upgrading of the capacity of the SLP since the ten years armed conflict ended, which is why as watchdogs this medium wants those gains made so far in the last twenty years or so to be fully consolidated rather than derailing them under your leadership in the SLP.
So, step up now in all areas of personnel welfare development including human and material resources managements as well as capacity building of the forces, thereby ensuring that each and every SLP personnel get what he/she deserves for the performance of effective and professional policing duties going forward.
Once that is fully done the credits go to you as head of the force, and your team of leaders at every starter.
For gone are the days when police officer perish in their various deployment postings. So, protect your personnel Mr Inspector General of the Sierra Leone Police, Ambrose Sovula.
Apart from the SLP other sector service delivery agencies who post personnel to work in remote communities hardly make adequate provisions of good working conditions for staff.
