Women Protest Black Monday Today to Save Sierra Leone from President Bio’s Tyranny
By Abu Shaw
There is no democracy in Sierra Leone under the failed SLPP government of President Julius Maada Bio. The women are now fighting tyrannic rule.
Sierra Leone under the SLPP regime has experienced the destruction of democracy and the rule of law. As a consequence, thousands of suffering women in Sierra Leone will come out today in full force to demonstrate against the artificial hardships created by the government of President Bio. The aggrieved women have described today’s demonstration as a ‘Black Monday’ symbolising the untold hardship that is being inflicted on the people of Sierra Leone by the most undemocratic regime the country has ever known. Yesterday, on the eve of the historic women’s protests, the Bio presidency ordered his SLPP brutal police to put the popular women’s leader Madam Femi Claudius Cole under house arrest initially in Freetown. She was eventually arrested with other people in her house and taken to the Criminal Investigations Department CID in Freetown where they are presently incarcerated. Also, the leader of the NGC party Dr Dennis Bright was also apprehended when he visited his sister and political colleague Femi Claudius Cole at the CID. Police brutality of the highest order.
Freedom of expression and speech is non-existent in Sierra Leone today. Civil liberties have been trampled upon by the most brutal police in the country’s history. President Bio is at the State House covertly orchestrating and pulling the strings by acting as the catalyst to dismantle the democracy and the rule of law and the constitution. No citizen has the right to protest against the injustices and socio-economic bastardisation of the Sierra Leone economy. Since April 4, 2018, when this violent-oriented SLPP regime assumed the mantle of office, thousands of peaceful protesters have either been imprisoned or killed by State-Sponsored security from the police and the military. Many instances of brutality and massacre had taken place under President Bio’s watch and nothing so far has come out of it. Now, such tyranny and barbarism have reached their crescendo. The women of Sierra Leone have had enough of the violence and misrule. They are therefore taking to the streets today to protest peacefully. The Bio police are however determined to use their powers to stop the demonstrators at all costs. With disastrous consequences awaiting the innocent women protesters, the jittery Bio presidency has deployed well-armed cannibalistic Kamajors wearing police and military uniforms to stop the ladies from exercising their civic rights. (Photo: Madam Femi-Cole and Dr Dennis Bright detained yesterday).
The determined ladies who have never protested en masse against the failed SLPP government of President Julius Maada Bio since he took power on April 4, 2018, will prove today through this historic demonstration that they have had enough of the suffering in Sierra Leone. The women’s determination has come at the precise time when President Bio’s regime had forcefully introduced the New Leone currency to the public during such economic stagnation and high inflation, a recipe for disaster. The Bio currency is widely criticised as untimely and lacks legitimacy because the majority of parliamentarians have opposed its introduction at this point in time. For the past few days, the social media platforms have been awash with videos and audios from organisers of the women’s demonstration calling on every woman in Sierra Leone to come out to vent their dissatisfaction and anger at the untold suffering the people of Sierra Leone are experiencing in the last four years under the misrule of President Bio’s SLPP government.
Leading the women’s protests is the group called the National Women’s Wing Sierra Leone NWWSL as well as other patriotic women activists who had also released many audios to that effect. Tension is mounting in all four corners of the country as the brave women mostly mothers and market women have expressed willingness to demonstrate today July 4. The social media messages to the women are very specific. The organisers have admonished all the women to down their tools today. Women in offices and in market places and women whose career is housewives should leave their homes to take up the streets to protest peacefully around the country. “We the women are the worst sufferers because we take care of our homes, we feel the pinch in market places to buy food, our husbands have lost their jobs and the few husbands who are working seldom receive their wages on time. So, today we are coming to tell our President and the SLPP government that things are getting worse every day for Sierra Leoneans. We will march peacefully on the streets around the country to demonstrate our unhappiness,” one of the audios from an organiser stressed. (Photo: President Bio is a dictator).
As the women’s momentum gathers speed, the jittery SLPP government has unsurprisingly decided to make a public threat against the women protesters who dare take the streets today to exercise their democratic rights and duties as citizens of Sierra Leone. President Bio who does not like Sierra Leoneans to protest against his maladministration has instructed his Inspector General of Police Ambrose Michael Sovulla to issue a press statement denouncing the women organisers of today’s demonstrations. The police statement dated July 2, 2022, and signed by Police Chief Sovulla himself, warned the Sierra Leone Police SLP Management would like to inform the general public that no permit was granted to any person or group of persons or organisation to hold any form of demonstration in any part of the country, on Monday 4th July 2022, or thereafter. “The SLP, therefore, wishes it to be known that whoever attempts to hold any demonstrations and or participate in any demonstrations shall be deemed to have contravened the provisions of the Public Order Act No. 46 of 1965, which provide for people to obtain a permit from the Inspector General of Police before engaging in such. Be it noted that whoever organises and or participates in an unauthorised demonstration shall be made to face the full consequences of the law,” some excerpt of the police statement read.
Political observers say President Bio’s regime is in a panic mood and a free-fall which has facilitated the urgency of the threatening police statement. Taking notes from past events, where the Kamajors in police and military uniforms had brutally wounded and murdered peaceful protesters in Makeni and other places, keen analysts believe the women organisers should not the police threat lightly. To give the necessary impact internationally, the women organisers have already informed the global partners resident in Sierra Leone namely the African Union, ECOWAS, United Nations, European Union, United Kingdom, and the United States Embassy about their intention to exercise their democratic rights and duties to protests and to also let them know about the police threats. The undemocratic SLPP government has promised to pounce hard on the protesting women if they dare come out today. From the looks of things, the Sierra Leone women are determined to go ahead despite the covert and overt threats from the SLPP government through their brutal police.
Conspicuously present in the organisational tree for today’s protest against the mismanagement of the Bio presidency is the Consortium of Progressive Political Party COPPP, an amalgamation of 13 registered political parties in Sierra Leone. COPPP’s leader Madam Femi Claudius Cole, who was the 2018 presidential candidate for the Unity Party, has given her blessing to the women protesters after a delegation of the Sierra Leone Women visited Madam Femi-Cole asking her to lead the demonstrations. As we go to press, Madam Femi-Cole has been arrested and detained at the Criminal Investigations Department CID in Freetown for a ridiculous ‘Incitement’ charge which has become the unfortunate hallmark of the corrupt SLPP administration. She was arrested with others who were also under her house arrest yesterday. Over twenty lawyers have registered their names with the lead barrister Ady Macauley to defend Femi-Cole and others. The jittery SLPP government and their puppets are blaming the main opposition APC party for the women’s protests against the govt organising protests which are totally untrue. Today’s demonstration is wholly and solely organised by the women of Sierra Leone who have had enough of the hardship, violence, and misrule since April 04, 2018, when President Bio took over power. For the Bio presidency to suggest that the APC is behind today’s demonstration suggests how incompetent they have become.
The SLPP party still thinks only the SLPP party supporters have the rights to protest. Sierra Leoneans still remember when the SLPP party was in opposition and how they were boisterous in making their voices heard through demonstrations during the APC government of President Ernest Bai Koroma. The likes of the current Anti-Corruption Commission ACC Chairman Francis Ben Kaifala used to use his Renaissance nonsense to declare Black Monday and protested when the fuel price was a mere Le6,000 per litre. The APC government never arrested him or any other protesters because President Koroma believes in political tolerance and democracy. But today, under President Bio, there is no democracy. Peaceful protesters have no voice. They are arrested and detained. Today, under the Bio presidency, as the price of fuel for instance reach Le22,000 per litre, the SLPP government does not want Sierra Leoneans to come out and protest. The likes of Ben Kaifala and other SLPP Civil Society Organisations are all mute pretending all is bright and beautiful What a shame.
