By Abu Shaw in London (11/02/2022)
The confused.com SLPP govt has freed the main opposition APC Spokesman after 48 hours of persecution, thanks to intensive local and global pressure.
The APC party Acting National Public Relations Officer Mr Sidi Yayah Tunis was released from police custody yesterday after undergoing serious SLPP government harassment, intimidation, and persecution for merely exercising his fundamental democratic rights and civil liberties.
Mr Sidi Yayah Tunis was invited by the brutal Inspector General of Police Ambrose Michael Sovulla following his two-hour interview at the 98.1 FM Radio Democracy in Freetown on Monday.
The next day, Mr Sidi Yayah, and the APC hierarchy including the National Secretary General Alhaji Osman Foday Yansaneh, the APC Parliamentary Opposition Leader Chernor Ramadan Maju Bah aka Chericoco, and others, alighted at the Criminal Investigations Department CID Headquarters in Freetown as requested. (Photo: Happy Sidi Tunis, centre, flanked by Chericoco, left, and Minkailu Mansaray, the APC Deputy Leader and Chairman, shortly after his release yesterday).
Mr Sidi Tunis was immediately questioned about his statements made during the radio interview, which the SLPP Police Chief and his government superiors deemed as “Incitement”. Shock is an understatement as far as the majority of Sierra Leoneans are concerned because there is nothing in that radio interview that showed that the APC party Spokesman had incited anyone. However, the jittery SLPP government of President Julius Maada Bio believes that the use of the phrase “Level Three” uttered by the APC Spokesman meant more than meets the eye. During the interview, Mr Sidi Yayah Tunis reiterated that Level Three simply means that his APC party will lawfully mobilise APC supporters and the people to redeem Sierra Leone and remove this failed SLPP government from power come 2023 general elections. “We will remove President Bio from power lawfully in next year’s elections,” Sidi Tunis re-emphasised but the panic-stricken SLPP regime thought otherwise.
At the CID Headquarters on Tuesday, the jittery President Bio’s police interpreted Sidi Yayah Tunis’ statement differently, so he was arrested and detained for “Incitement”, which did not go down well with the APC party and the Sierra Leone community in and outside the country. The arrest and detention of the APC Spokesman was President Bio’s latest faux pas among many mistakes as the dictatorial agenda by the SLPP agents may apparently hand over power on a silver platter to the APC party in the 2023 crucial general elections. This barbarism has been the scenario and it is still the scenario by the SLPP regime. “Comical and Ridiculous”, is the description given to the arrest and detention of the APC Spokesman Mr Sidi Yayah Tunis who was eventually released yesterday much to the delight of all peace-loving citizens. (Photo: Mr Sidi Tunis, 3rd left, pose with APC stalwarts at CID yesterday. And the APC Scribe Yansaneh, in blue cap).
.
Even the leading PR guru for the SLPP regime Umaru Fofana of the BBC doubted the sanity of President Bio’s New Direction policy. His last BBC report on Sidi Yayah Tunis has been hailed by Sierra Leoneans as the most neutral by the BBC reporter Umaru Fofana since President Bio came to power in 2018. Some citizens believe Mr Umaru Fofana might have seen the writings on the wall and that was why he reported professionally on the Sidi Tunis issue. During the interview, the soft-spoken and eloquent APC party Spokesman reiterated countless times that the APC will remove this current government from power lawfully by mobilising the people to rescue the nation from bondage. However, the Police Chief ordered Sidi Tunis’ arrest after reportedly receiving instructions from “Orders from Above” the most common draconian phrase today under the autocracy of President Bio.
Mr Sidi Yayah Tunis was reportedly seen barefoot while in police custody in an overcrowded cell. In reaction, APC Scribe Osman Yansaneh blasted the SLPP government for the continuous harassment and intimidation of APC officials for no justifiable reasons. He noted that Sid Tunis has not done anything wrong during the radio interview. “I will also say the same things Yayah Tunis said in the radio interview. I would not mind if the police arrest me for saying that,” the APC scribe noted. Observers in and outside Sierra Leone believe that President Bio’s government continues to undermine civil liberties unlike, what was happening during the last APC government of President Ernest Bai Koroma. Everyone knows how the then opposition SLPP party members were having free expressions in the country without being harassed and intimidated by Koroma’s administration.
The then SLPP Public Relations Officer Lahai Lawrence Leema was caught talking about overthrowing the APC government but he was never arrested for saying that. The former Chairman of the SLPP/UKI Mr Yangawo who is now the Sierra Leone Ambassador to Russia was on social media in London before the 2018 elections threatening violence against the APC government. He was never arrested when he returned to Sierra Leone. Many other SLPP members uttered inflammatory speeches in and outside the country, but the Koroma government that believed in democracy never intimidated these violent-oriented SLPP members. The SLPP party is the most violent and undemocratic political party in Sierra Leone. But the last APC government of President Koroma was exercising democracy and respecting the civil liberties of all citizens, unlike the current SLPP government that has undermined the fragile democracy in the country. A few weeks ago, one Austin Johhny, an SLPP Young Generation leader, came on social media and threatened to kill any APC party supporter who criticised President Bio’s Mid-Term Census. Up to this time, the SLPP police have not arrested him for making such a terrible threat. Here is what the BBC Reporter Umaru Fofana told the world on Tuesday about the arrest and detention of the APC Spokesman Yayah Tunis. (Photos: Yayah Tunis driven away from CID yesterday).
BBC Studio: Umaru Fofana joins us now on the line. Evening to you Umaru, what can you tell or what the police have been giving you about the reasons for the arrest?
Umaru Fofana: Hi Bola, I am talking to you right now from the Headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department and I have just in the last few moments seen Sidi Yayah Tunis who is the Spokesman of the main opposition APC party. I have just seen him behind bars in a room alongside at least two dozen other people. They are all there. He was on barefoot and he had his Manchester United T-shirt on and he said he had been there for at least in the last two hours, but was in fact, invited to the Headquarters here at around 11 O’clock. I spoke to the Head of the Police Inspector General Ambrose Sovulla as to why Mr Tunis was called in? He said it’s related to an interview he encountered on a local radio yesterday on Radio Democracy in which some of the contents that Yayah Tunis had said in that interview amounted to incitement. Therefore, they called him in this morning to talk to him and then to analyse the contents of what he had said. His party Secretary-General Osman Yansaneh is there and they said that it is ironic that they had just ended a meeting with the UN Resident Coordinator talking about how to tranquilise the situation in Sierra Leone ahead of the elections in 2023.
BBC Studio: And when they talk about incitement, what do they also mean especially after making these statements as is widely publicised, he voluntarily decided to go to the questioning and is now on barefoot in a police cell, must be raising eyebrows?
Umara Fofana: Well it is raising eyebrows because the opposition APC party has been complaining that their leadership has been particularly coming under police brutality and police harassment. The police have consistently denied this saying they’ve only been keeping law and order. But some of what he said I’ve listened to it too to the two-hour-long programme. He was basically saying from what I heard, it appeared to be saying they are going to ask their members and supporters across the country to do what they called Level Three ahead of the elections in 2023. And in which case, it means he kept emphasising in the interview – through lawful means – they would ensure that they redeem in his words the people of Sierra Leone when the elections come in 2023. The police have not told how that amounts to incitement or anything Sidi might have said that deemed it inciting.
BBC Studio: Umaru, we will leave it there but… I am sure we will hear more for the next edition at 1900 GMT. That’s Umaru Fofana who just seen the Spokesman of the main opposition APC party behind bars and barefoot in Headquarters in Freetown, the BBC report ends. The most shameful part of what is unfolding in Sierra Leone today is the absolute silence of the vital internal stakeholders like the Civil Society Organisations CSOs, the Religious Leaders, the Media. All of these stakeholders are visibly absent in these trying times as President Bio’s dictatorship and heavy-handedness against innocent citizens in the country. Sources say these corrupt stakeholders are keeping silent on pertinent issues of national concern because they are all in the pockets of the Bio presidency.
