By Kabs Kanu
The Sierra Leone Minister of Information and Civic Education, Mr. Chernoh Bah, today confirmed the news that stunned myriads of people yesterday—The arrest in Freetown by security forces of former military officer, Amadu Koita Makolo, the famous anti- government social media critic , who has been operating from the United Kingdom for the past four years since he fled Sierra Leone and sought refuge in London.
TOP : KOITA AT THE CID AFTER HIS ARREST
BOTTOM: THE WOMAN WHO WAS ALLEGEDLY SHELTERING KOITA PLEADING WITH SECURITY OFFICERS FOR HER SAFETY .
What Mr. Koita , who had been very vocal on social media in criticizing the government and calling for the overthrow of President Maada Bio , was doing in Freetown at a time when an alleged coup attempt had been made, stunned everybody who had been accusing the SLPP Government of stage- managing the abortive coup.
Yesterday’s arrest in Freetown of Koita, coupled with the discovery and shooting to death during the confusion of another hardline anti- government activist , ex-military officer Ibrahim Kamara ( Leatherboots ) who had been based in Guinea seemingly confirmed the government version that there was indeed a coup attempt and that it had not been stage- managed, after all.
Since gunmen attempted to seize the Wilberforce Barracks Amory and Cockerill military headquarters and then released hundreds of inmates from the Pademba Road Prisons on Sunday November 26, the SLPP had been insisting that it was an attempt to overthrow the government, but because of many reasons, including distrust for the Bio government, many people had not been buying the narrative, contending that it was a stage- managed affair to abort the forthcoming tripartite interparty dialogue and investigations into the June 24 elections.
However. the presence in the capital of former military officers, who were adversaries of government living outside the countryb and who were aware of the fact that the government would arrest them if found around , even without any chaos. has heightened beliefs that the SLPP government narrative was true, after all.
Supporters of Koita, especially , are at a loss to understand how he surfaced in Freetown when he had been seeking asylum in England, after fleeing from Sierra Leone following his escape from the Pademba Road Prisons during the bloody riot by inmates where he has spent nine months while being charged by government with sedition and making incendiary remarks against the government.
After the November 26 heavy shootings and rampage in Freetown which killed dozens of serving military officers, rumors broke out that Koita was seen among the gunmen at Pademba Road Prisons but considering it most impossible, his friends , supporters and colleague social media activists denied, asserting that he was in London where he had been producing anti- government.audios all these years. They could not comprehend how he could have been in Freetown when , to them, this was a stage- managed coup attempt. Some said he would have told them he was making.an outside trip.But efforts to reach him failed in the days following the Freetown chaos, creating suspicions and worries from family and comrades. Some of his fans said he had just decided not to talk or make his regular audios.
But then came the breaking news late yesterday that Koita had been arrested in Freetown after he was found hiding in the basement of a three – storey building, being allegedly sheltered by a CID officer, Madam Alima Bangura , who has also been arrested.
