This is my letter of concern, I have just emailed to the mayor of Islington.
The Hon Mayor.
I am shocked to hear that a ceremony will be held at Islington Council , of which you are the esteemed leader to award the president of Sierra Leone as the “west Africa president of the year”
As a retired British civil servant of Sierra Leone origin and one time the secretary general UK branch of the governing SLPP, I find this award totally dubious and ludicrous.
Cater and Merger is a management consultancy company based in the United Kingdom and with presence in Nigeria. One of the services it provides clients is” Corporate media and political campaign marketing”
My concern is how much of Sierra Leone taxpayers money the president and his team had paid this consultancy company to promote his image.
Over 40 prisoners were gunned down, unlawfully, in the early hours of the morning with his deputy minister of interior and the party women’s leader both present. Uptill now, the relatives of those murdered do not know what happened to their bodies.
Dozens of unarmed youths were killed in Makeni City by his security forces for protesting against the removal of electricity generator from their city. This happened days after his resident minister for that region had threatened the youths that they would be killed if they join demonstration against his government.
Dozens more youths were shot and killed by security forces across the country, but especially in the opposition stronghold in the North.
In the 2020 US country reports on human rights practices in Sierra Leone, it state that :
“Significant human rights issues included: unlawful or arbitrary killings by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; serious acts of corruption; and criminalization of same-sex sexual conduct”
On corruption and embezzlement of state funds, both the auditor general report and the Africanistpress investigative media based in America have revealed unprecedented corruption at the heart of government, including the president and his wife.
This is a government that purchased 30 SUV jeeps ,costing 80,000 US dollars each and handed it to ministers to fight COVID19, when the main government hospital in the second largest city of Sierra Leone didn’t have a single oxygen metres machine, which is vital to the treatment of COVID19.
Sir, It is with great sadness and dissapointment as citizens of UK, that contributed significantly in building democracy, which has been under threat to hear that your Borough holding an award ceremony to honour a very corrupt and human rights abuser as the president of the year in West Africa. It is an unseemly award.
What’s all this propaganda for?
Sierra Leoneans are dying of hunger daily and death from treatable diseases on a scale never seen before in peace time in the bear 4 years of this Administration.
Less than one percent of households have pipe borne water in their homes. Yet this president and his wife have travelled in more than 80 times in three years looking for investors .
There is not a single investor in Sierra Leone that resulted from his numerous overseas trips abroad with enormous cost to the tax payers.
Freedom of speech is under attack, inspite of the repealed of criminal libel law. A 40 years old man was looked up in jail for 4 months after he said the president and his wife had committed sin and he would like to talk to them about it.
Civil society and the media are compromise and they don’t hold the government accountable and this includes the government appointed Anti corruption agency, which many people believe it is protecting government officials whilst chasing opposition politicians.
There is no such thing as the separation of powers as we have it here in UK.
This is to bring to your attention for information purposes and to impress on your worship that your Borough hosting this controversial awards ceremony will be a disappointing to great many Sierra Leoneans in UK and in Sierra Leone.
Your Sincerely
Yankuba Kai-Samba
Chelmsford-UK
