By Foday Moriba Conteh
It was a drizzling Wednesday morning on the 21st June, 2023 in the capital city of Freetown with signs of unusualness that shows that it was not going to be a regular day with the same routine. Many shops were closed, few commercial and private vehicles were plying the streets with some people using Kekeh and Okada to move from one place to another. School children were not seen and there was heavy presence of security personnel at strategic locations within the city.
There was little wonder why the morning was so dull and quiet as it was common knowledge that the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) Party leadership has called upon its party supporters to put on white and black, not the party colours, and turnout in their Chinese numbers to converge at their Party’s Secretariat from where they should proceed to the offices of the election management body, the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL), in a peaceful protest for failure on the part of ECSL to adequately address concerns they have raised which they say were deliberately done to manipulate the credibility of the 24th June, 2023 elections and call for the resignation of the Chief Electoral Officer, Mohamed Kenewui Konneh and other Commissioners to be replaced by electoral experts who will then conduct the Polls.
The call for a peaceful protest ,on the part of the APC Leadership, came contrary, to not been granted permission to do so by the Security Sector which had earlier warned that any defiance on the part of any party or supporter will be deemed unlawful and will be met with the full force of the law.
That notwithstanding, some party stalwarts, including the Secretary General of the APC Part, Lawyer Lansana Dumbuya and other Executive members ventured out as was the case in some parts of the country, as reports were filtering in.
They converged with placards calling for the resignation of the sitting President, Julius Maada Bio, who is seeking a second term bid and the Chief Electoral Commissioner and other Commissioners. As it was going to mid day the crowd began to swell and as attempts were made to embark on the protest the Police and Military fired teargas to disperse them. However, the crowd became tense as violence break out at the APC Party Office in the West End of Freetown which became confrontational leaving three dead of gunshot and some injured as they ran helter-skelter. As the security force stood their ground the crowd grew thinner and became less violent but stubbornly defiant releasing all sorts of invectives.
During this stalemate, the APC Presidential Candidate, Dr Samura Kamara, descended on the scene and passionately appealed to his party supporters to go home and be ready to cast their votes for all party candidates on Saturday assuring them of the party’s victory.
“We will protect the votes to the best of our ability. The strength is on the ballot box. The APC has the numbers and we have sent the message to President Bio that the party is very strong and determined,’ Samura told the crowd.
He told them to go home peacefully and be prepared to vote on Saturday for all the APC candidates.
It must be recalled that prior to Wednesday event, the PPRC and Peace Commission facilitated a dialogue meeting among the APC and ECSL to reach a common understanding based on the demands put forward by the APC, a meeting that lasted three days at the Bintumani Conference Centre on Aberdeen in Freetown but ended with little success and failed from preventing the main opposition APC party from accepting ECSL’s position on key issues they highlighted and embarking on staging what they referred to as a peaceful protest.
As the situation now stands, it is certain that the elections will hold on Saturday, 24th June, 2023 as scheduled.
