Two Laws, One Nation – Sierra Leone’s Crisis of Selective Justice

By Abass Sesay

Two Laws, One Nation – Sierra Leone’s Crisis of Selective Justice

In Sierra Leone today, justice wears two faces. One face shields the elite and those who walk the corridors of power.

The other face punishes the less privileged, the critical minds, and members of the opposition.

When a nation descends to this level of selective enforcement, it is not merely a flaw in the system. It is a declaration that the RULE OF LAW has been abandoned at its core.

Entertainer and APC opposition member Zainab Sheriff now sits in prison, sentenced to four years on charges of incitement and threatening language under the draconian Public Order Act of 1965. Her crime was a speech at a political rally in January this year.

Yet under that same law, Kadiru Kai Kai publicly threatened to bring war to Sierra Leone if his party, the SLPP, refused to make him flagbearer.

To any right thinking person, that statement carries far greater weight of incitement and menace than anything Zainab Sheriff said. Still, he walks free.

There is also video evidence of the president telling a political gathering in his hometown (Bonthe) that everyone supporting the opposition will die.

Imagine, for a moment, if an opposition member uttered those words. The consequences would be swift and severe as the case of Zainab.

But neither Kadiru Kai Kai nor the president has been brought to book.

Their words, direct threats to the peace and security of the country, have met no courtroom, no sentence, no accountability.

A state that jails an opposition activist for speech while excusing war threats and death decrees from the powerful has not just bent the law. It has broken it.

Selective justice is not justice at all. It is political warfare waged through the courts, and it poisons public trust beyond repair.

When punishment depends on party colours, not on conduct, the law becomes a cage for dissent and a shield for impunity.

Sierra Leone cannot claim to be a democracy while it operates two legal standards.

Until the same law that caged Zainab Sheriff is used to cage every citizen who threatens peace, regardless of rank or affiliation, the rule of law in Sierra Leone remains dead.