ADY MACAULEY ESQ
BARRISTER & SOLICITOR (INNER TEMPLE)
NOTARY PUBLIC & COMMISSIONER FOR OATHS
2ND FLOOR
No.16 PADEMBA ROAD
FREETOWN–SIERRA LEONE
TEL: 076-543-534
E-mail [email protected]/[email protected]
19th May 2024
Eddinia M. Swallow (Ms.)
President, Sierra Leone Bar Association.
Block Five, Special Court Complex
New England Ville
Freetown
Dear Madam President,
RE: THE IGNOMINY OF THE BAR ASSOCIATION ANNUAL GENERAL
MEETING IN KENEMA HELD ON 17TH/18TH MAY 2024.
As you are aware, I am a member of the Sierra Leone Bar Association
(SLBA) and I have been so since the year 2004. Your receiving this letter
from me regarding the above referenced subject matter will not be a
surprise to you as you presided over, and witnessed the day of infamy that
will be indelibly etched in the annals of the SLBA. Whilst I was unavoidably
absent at the SLBA’s AGM held in Kenema, I keenly followed the events
through affiliated SLBA social media sources where progressive updates of
all the happenings at the AGM were reported. I was also in contact with
colleagues that attended the AGM.
I continue to address you “Madam President” because the SLBA being a
corporate body the processes relative to an AGM did not proceed in
Kenema hence, your executive continues until due process is complied
with. It is against this backdrop that I feel sufficiently informed and
compelled to put pen to paper to spotlight the acts of professional
dishonour and national disgrace as displayed by what can only be
described as a “thug in sweat suit aided by henchmen and women” at the
SLBA’s AGM in Kenema yesterday.
For the records, what took place in Kenema yesterday under your watch
was not an isolated incident, it was well planned, coordinated and
executed with surgical precision by a set of rogue lawyers who the public
expect so much from by reason of the profession they belong and the
positions they occupy in our country.
You will recall that both Augustine Sorie Sengbeh Marah Esq. and Ms.
Wara Serry-Kamal instituted legal proceedings in the High Court of Sierra
Leone against the SLBA and your very self, all in a bid to ensure a
successful SLBA AGM where election for its new directors will not be
conducted “In tenebris”; all they were asking for was a dignified, free, fair
and transparent process. Both applications sought, amongst other things
the following:
a. A change of venue.
b. For an Emergency General Meeting (EGM) to be called to allow
members to have a say on where the AGM should be held.
c. To allow lawyers who are duly subscribed and unavoidably absent
to participate and have their say in who their leaders will be by
lodging a proxy vote.
d. To provide a verified list of registered voters to all candidates and
cause the said list to be published by notice not later than two days
to the scheduled date for elections.
Without summoning an EGM for members of the Bar to discuss the legal
actions instituted against the Bar, you and your executive, for reasons
only known to you, vehemently opposed both applications. By letter dated
13th May 2024, Wara Serry-Kamal (Ms.) wrote to you requesting a meeting
between the executive and all three candidates contesting for the position
of president to discuss pertinent issues touching and concerning the
smooth running of the AGM, you declined her request. On 24th April 2024,
Wara Serry-Kamal (Ms.) wrote to the Inspector General of Police requesting
a meeting with the Bar executive and all contesting candidates for the
position of President to discuss policing of the Bar AGM, her request was
initially accepted but the scheduled meeting later cancelled by the IGP. All
of this, in my view, was part of the conspiratorial web of lies, deceit and
deception, hell bent on ensuring that members are denied a dignified AGM
and an effort to shut the door on a transparent election process.
I have reviewed the agenda and note that arrival of guest was to take place
between the period 1pm to 2pm. This notwithstanding, Messrs, Sidique
and Paul Juwah both of whom were contesting for the positions of Vice
President and Secretary General in concert with Francis Ben Kaifala called
the meeting to order at 11:56; well over an hour before the scheduled time,
and whilst colleagues were either queuing under the sun or trying to make
their way from Bo through the Bo-Kenema Highway which had been
blocked for obvious reasons.
By the dictates of the Memorandum and Articles of Association (M&A) of
the SLBA, a senior member of the Bar present at an AGM will preside over
the elections. For the avoidance of doubt, let me reproduce hereunder,
verbatim, article 36 of the SLBA M&A:
“Election shall be conducted by a senior member of the Association
appointed by the members”.
In addition to article 36 referenced here above, it is also the tradition that
the most senior member of the Bar present is given the honour to conduct
the election. By some sort of subterfuge, it is to be noted that Francis Ben
Kaifala Esq., the Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission
presided over the sham elections (he alone distributed the ballots, counted
the ballots and announced his winners) notwithstanding the presence of
Sulaiman Banja Tenja-Sei Esq., Chairman of the General Legal Council
who attempted to instill sanity of the process, Kaifala esq., took the mic
from him and continued acting the well written script. I am advised that
E. E. C. Shears-Moses was also present at the conference.
I need not recant what transpired in and outside of the AGM hall in
Kenema seriatim as those moments of shame are well captured and
documented in video clips making the rounds on various social media
platforms. It is however imperative that we clearly quarantine the episodes
in the “series of shame” that are the “sine qua non” of that monumental
disgrace the legal profession was subjected to in Kenema. From my
information and observation from video clips I saw, the following
happened:
i. The official agenda for the AGM has 12:00-1pm slated for
registration of members but the meeting was called to order just
after 11:56 when some members who were travelling from
Freetown/Bo were held up on a bridge leading to Kenema where a
mysterious industrial vehicle had a breakdown peculiarly and
unusually horizontal, right across the bridge, preventing vehicular
traffic proceeding to Kenema.
ii. There was a motion to amend the agenda; election of directors is
traditionally one of the last agenda items of the last day of SLBA
AGM and it was so this time. However, election was brought forward
from item 8 to item 2 on the agenda; this clearly was part of the
“animo furandi” the election.
iii. Members of the Bar present in the hall objected and protested the
amendment of the agenda and Ben Kaifala esq., conducting the
elections but their views were either ignored or drowned in the
backlash noise.
iv. This led to a melee in the hall with ballot papers scattered all over,
Police officers discharging what appears to be pepper spray in the
hall leading to members choking and running out of the hall.
v. With military precision, Ben Kaifala can be seen and heard on video
belching thunderous instructions to the police officers to lock all the
entrances and not allow anyone to enter the hall again.
vi. Ben Kaifala proceeded to personally dish out ballot papers to people
without reference to the register of fully paid up members and with
keen preference to persons wearing blue bands who I have come to
know as supporter of a certain candidate.
vii. Ben Kaifala personally counted the ballot papers.
viii. Ben Kaifala announced Madam Tuma Adama Jabbi as the duly
elected president of the Sierra Leone Bar Association
All the above happened in the presence of a heavy Police contingent who
created the security bubble for Ben Kaifala to wantonly lead the charge
and preside over our moment of shame as lawyers.
I served the SLBA for two terms as Secretary General and one term as
Public Relations officer almost 15 years ago; 2024 is my 20th year since I
was called to the Bar, what I witnessed yesterday I have never seen before,
it shook the foundation of my beliefs that lawyers are advocates and
protectors of the “rule of law”, but sadly, the acts of discomfiture displayed
by a thug in sweat suit aided by henchmen and women betrayed that
belief. To crown it all, your absence was very much conspicuous when this
was unfolding. I note you claimed in one of the video clips I have reviewed
that you were not aware of what was unfolding but then again, the
question is where is the leadership expected to be in such pivotal moment
of our history? could you by any reasonable conception disabuse your
mind of not having shirked your responsibility to the SLBA you
consciously and deliberately dragged to Kenema. Your conspicuous
silence and failure to publicly address and dissociate your leadership from
this catastrophe is being viewed as acquiescing to the “legal scandal of the
century”.
I fervently hope that you will reflect on the events of yesterday and do the
right thing; put out a notice that your executive is still in office and that
the abortive AGM would be held in Freetown and elections to be held
(under the superintendence of an electoral body appointed by members)
for the replacement of your executive within 21 days hereof. This will be
you moment of “Poenitentia”, or else, your peers will judge your tenure
as the period when the SLBA was murdered, and Kenema was the “Locus
delicti” “the Crime Scene”.
To the public, and the youth who see us as role models, I sincerely
apologise for the spectacle in Kenema by members of our noble profession.
You all deserve better.
Yours faithfully
Ady Macauley Esq
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