By KABS KANU :

How do you continue to  take the law into your own hands  with such depraved indifference to civility in a country where there is a fully functioning Police force  and a judicial system ?  Somebody tries to sell fuel to you at a higher price than the normal .What do you do ? Don’t you report it to the Police if you are really seeking justice ? How dare you take the law into your own hands by forcibly grabbing the person , tying him up like a pig trossed for slaughter , toss him into a jeep and drive him 71 miles, bypassing police stations on the way and when you are caught with the victim you claim that you only wanted to teach him a lesson for trying to defraud you ?  Are we now living in the old Wild West where it was free -for-all between marauding cowboys, drifters, lawless bushwhackers,  two-bit gunslingers,   freebooters, cattle thieves and bandits ?

POLICE CHIEF FRANCIS MUNU : CRACK DOWN ON LAWLESSNESS NOW

This kind of surreal, sordid and  unbelievable spectacle reads like a page from a cowboy novel and  can only happen in a country where people have decided not to obey the laws any more  but to introduce jungle law and jungle justice . The versions  being bandied about by supporters of the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party ( SLPP ) about  last Saturday’s dramatic incident in Moyamba,  where a man was allegedly kidnapped by officials of the SLPP , tied up and thrown into a jeep and taken 71 miles from the scene  before being  intercepted by the Police after a tip-off , does not augur well for the the promotion of truth and  peace and security in the nation. The SLPP is not only taking Sierra Leoneans to be morons; they have a dangerous agenda for this country that will witness a complete breakdown in law and order and they want Sierra Leoneans to accept that status quo without question . The SLPP  version is insulting to the collective intelligence of our people.

Let us forget for a moment allegations doing the rounds that the kidnapped man could have been a victim of ritual murder , which is an even more serious crime than kidnapping and depriving somebody of his freedom. The very fact  that certain people have started  playing Police , judge and jury in a land where there is a well-trained and functioning Police Force and a judicial system  is frightening enough to give every Sierra Leonean the jitters.

Incidentally, one of the men detained for the Moyamba incident is Mohamed Kanu-Mansaray, the newly-elected councillor from the Fourah Bay constituency whose supporters stabbed five APC people during the recent violent bye-elections. After all the insults heaped on some of us for highlighting the violence, the councillor has gone and proved us right  that he is part of an elaborate plan to subvert law and order in the country. By being involved so early  in alleged kidnapping for alleged ritual murder purposes  just after his supporters engaged in the butchery of  APC supporters , Mr. Kanu-Mansaray has shown that he was chosen for a purpose. Sierra Leoneans can now clearly draw a parallel between the orgy of stabbings and brutality at Fourah Bay by the SLPP and the violent and sinister character of the people the SLPP wants to rule Sierra Leone, like Mr. Kanu-Mansaray and former junta leader Maada Bio. It can now be clearly seen that the bestiality and violence at Fourah Bay were  well-orchestrated and fall within the  game plan of the SLPP  to strike terror in Sierra Leone this year. Kanu-Mansaray could well be frontman for somebody who wants to gain power by violent and diabolical means.

When journalists who have yet not been bought over by the BIG MONEY POLITICS  being played by Maada Bio, John Benjamin, Khadi Sesay , Suliman Banja Tejan-Sie and other SLPP Big wigs (who are definitely receiving massive funding from an odious source  interested in regime change in Sierra Leone ) report on these acts of lawlessness , SLPP supporters rain insults and threats on them and accuse them of hating their party. But really, some of us have nothing against the SLPP. WE BELIEVE IN MULTI-PARTY DEMOCRACY AND BELIEVE THAT THE SLPP HAS THE RIGHT TO EXIST IN SIERRA LEONE  . However,  anybody who loves civility, decency, law and order and acceptable norms would have a lot to quarrel  with a party that seems to have a penchant for not obeying the law and constitued authority.

Sierra Leone has come a long way in post-war reconstruction with security sector reform  being one of the efforts underpinning the country’s earnest endeavours to build back a society where law and order , constitutional democracy  and peace and security of every person prevail. Since he came to power in 2007, President Ernest Koroma  has boosted national peace and security by providing more training for the Police and legal practioners and accentuating the full operation of the Rule of Law in Sierra Leone. With civil society , women’s groups and the media strengthened and operating freely in the country, Sierra Leoneans  and international stakeholders are impressed with  the post-war evolution of a society governed  by the Rule of Law and the constitution. However, since former junta leader  Julius Maada Bio  joined the race to be  the SLPP  flagbearer for the 2012 presidential elections,  law and order are systematically breaking down in the nation.

Maada Bio’s candidacy,  built around the axiom of “Pa-O- Pa” ( Power at all costs )  politics , has started to cost this nation her hard-earned peace and security. It has divided the ranks of the very SLPP, leading to many defections to the ruling All People’s Congress ( APC ) ; it has polarised the media with some sections of the Sierra Leone press being wooed over through heft cash handouts to remain silent about Maada Bio’s past, his diabolical machinations to gain power and his injection of violence in the country. Stringers and correspondents of foreign media including the BBC,  are silent once again over the alleged ritual murder attempt as they were when APC supporters were stabbed and left in pools of blood at Fourah Bay recently. . If it had involved APC operatives, the BBC and  the foreign media would have been awash this morning with stories that officials of the ruling party had been arrested with a human being they were going to kill for human sacrifice. Bio’s candidacy has also polarised the nation and brought back violence. Bio started by brutalizing his own SLPP  supporters who opposed his candidacy and he turned the SLPP Headquarters into a hotbed of thuggery, drug-peddling and smoking and prostitution. He even brutalized journalists of the Awareness Times newspaper. As soon as he was handed the flagbearership, Bio and his supporters laid down the marker that it is either their Presidential candidate for State House this year or it will be violence.  This was clearly demonstrated in the bye-elections at Tongo and Fourah Bay  and the Bo disturbances during which  SLPP thugs unleashed mayhem and terror.

The ball is now in the government’s court to crack down now and stop Sierra Leone from descending back into chaos. People are testing the government’s resolve to enforce law and order in Sierra Leone and the government should rise to the challenge and nip the encroaching lawlessness in the bud. We cannot afford the evolution of a lawless fiefdom in the country. We have only one government and central authority . All persons and political parties must remain subject to the authority of the government and the Rule of Law. Nobody has the right to hold the government and the country hostage.

© 2012, COCORIOKO. All rights reserved. – Discuss this and other related articles on the Salone Forum