Since the Sierra Leone People’s Party(SLPP) came to power in a controversial runoff elections on 4th April, 2018 the citizens of Sierra Leone have witness and experience a blatant abuse of their constitution which the SLPP were lampooning the now opposition All People’s Congress(APC) for over the past ten years.
The citizens of Sierra Leone have seen Armed Police Personnel entered the sacred well of Parliament and brutally hooked honourable elected Members of Parliament out with the orders of the Clerk of Parliament who was a member of Parliament ,but was rejected symbol by his constituents because of his blatant display of ineptitude and lack of respect and leadership charisma. Members of Parliament were tyrannically manhandled and some were even hospitalized as a result.
The President has issued executive orders as against our constitution and he has even sacked Ambassadors and High Commissioners and Diplomats without the due process of the law. He has terminated the contract of Presidential appointees at State House without the due process of the law by issuing them a month notice and serve them letters officially.
There is an elected Mayor for the Freetown Municipality and all other municipalities across the country who were constitutionally charged with the responsibility of cleaning their cities. But the citizens of Sierra Leone have seen where all these elected officials especially the Mayor of the Freetown Municipality, the capital city was militarily marginalized in the cleaning process executively ordered by the president which was a constitutional breach and disrespect to the elected Mayor Madam Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr .
Sierra Leonean citizens have seen where monies donated by donor agencies ,local business entities and ordinary citizens were deposited into government officials private accounts with no explanation. We have seen where a designated minister who is yet to be approved by Parliament issue out orders he referred to as *”Ministerial Orders”* by extending the time the cleaning process should end as against the executive orders of the president which made many home spent the day without food.
The inauguration ceremony of the president is slated for the 12th May 2018 whilst the elected Mayor of the Freetown municipality is yet to be sworn in officially.
The people of Sierra Leone used to see vibrant Civil Society Activism before the elections advocating and lambasting the then ruling APC now opposition but they were missing in action in all the constitutional abuse and breaches this less than two months old government has committed. We used to see Civil Rights Activists like Ibrahim Tommy of the Centre for Accountability and the Rule of Law( *CARL*) taking the front in challenging the APC government of former president Ernest Bai Koroma and he is on record to have even taken the previous government to the ECOWAS Court for the welfare of Ebola Survivors but he has gone quiet in all the massive human rights abuses this current regime has committed. I don’t want to subscribe to what some citizens were accusing him of fighting the course of the then opposition *SLPP* in the guise of Civil Rights activism. Some citizens are saying he has limit his activism on Facebook and other social media platforms rather than going to the mainstream media like he was doing.
Sierra Leoneans have seen where the President has appointed a Chief Minister which was only created in *1954* during our precolonial era and it is never in our post independent constitutions. The citizens of Sierra Leone were expecting the same Civil Rights Activists who were challenging the past administration on constitutional matters to demand answers from the current administration on the creation of the office of Chief Ministers whose functions as outlined in a dangling press statement from State House redundant the duties of the elected vice president of the country *Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh*. Some citizens are of the opinion that the president will not toe the line of his predecessor of sacking the vice president, but the creation of the office of the Chief Minister will render the office of the vice president useless.
*With excessive use of executive orders, Sierra Leonean are mourning the death of democracy in their land and they are missing the freedom and human rights they have been enjoying under former president EBK*.
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©️Tonkolili Echo*
