By KABS KANU
Freetown Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyer has done considerable damage to the international image of President Maada Bio and the Sierra Leone People’s Party ( SLPP) Government by exposing painful details of the president’s horrifying human rights abuses and misrule in Sierra Leone that will resonate around the world with shock.
The BBC documentary will also bolster moves by concerned citizens of Sierra Leone to have Maada Bio and some of his officials indicted by the International Criminal Court ( ICC ) when he leaves office.
Shortly after the BBC released the documentary today, Mayor Aki-Sawyer, whom Bio and SLPP acolytes hate to their guts , intimated that she felt honored to have her work featured in a BBC documentary and would like to thank On Our Radar and the BBC News Africa for this recognition.
The release of the BBC documentary received lots of commendation from Sierra Leonean human rights activists, journalists and concerned Sierra Leoneans who have been complaining to the international world since President Bio came to power in 2018 that another bloody dictator with no respect for human lives , democracy, rule of law and the constitution had graced the scene in a conspicuous part of the Africa , Sierra Leone, where a bloody rebel war raged for 11 years in the 1990s.
The documentary video highlights the tumultuous and chaotic electioneering period in Sierra Leone during which President Bio ‘s security forces and thugs of the ruling SLPP unleashed mayhem on the opposition, culminating in the same forces firing live bullets on the APC Headquarters in Freetown while the party’s presidential candidate was conducting a press conference attended by the Mayor herself. A nurse belonging to the opposition APC was shot to death .
The video is very distressing. It shows Maada Bio’s security forces shooting live bullets at the APC office and the Mayor and attendees scrambling under tables and chairs and the Mayor on her phone appealing for help from outside.
THE MAYOR’S STATEMENT
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“I am honoured to have my work featured in a BBC documentary and would like to thank On Our Radar and the BBC News Africa for this recognition.
“In November 2022, documentary producers On Our Radar asked if they could do a BBC documentary with a focus on my work as Mayor on the climate crisis – a film crew would follow me from January to August 2023 capturing my day-to-day activities. I agreed and the film crew arrived in Freetown in January 2023.
“At the end of February 2023, local councils were dissolved. I was out of office for most of the period covered by the documentary and the film crew followed me throughout the election season.
“Subsequent to the filming of the documentary, the Agreement for National Unity was signed, under the terms of which I assumed office on 30th October 2023 along with other elected officials of the All People’s Congress Party.
“As Mayor of Freetown, I am working with the central government, our development partners and all Freetonians as we continue the journey to #TransformFrreetown.
“This documentary was produced by the BBC, the BBC has full editorial control over it and it has been released in accordance with the BBC’s own release schedule.”
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