By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
I think I must always be very careful when writing about the Sierra Leone Police simply because my late mother-in-law and father-in-law, and even my brother-in-law, were all police personnel. And two of my female cousins-in-law are currently police officers. Therefore, I will be carefully careful about my in-laws’ profession so that they won’t give me a haircut in the ‘Blackeresque’ (this is another One Dropian word) style.
That’s why, in today’s One Dropian dropping, I will not be writing about the alleged consistent “palm-greasing” of traffic police personnel by Poda-Poda and Taxi drivers or Keke and Okada riders countrywide. I will not even touch on the alleged “Dominion” PhD of the Inspector General of Police, Ambrose Michael Sovula, which the whistle-blower, Dr John Idriss Lahai, says is as fake as a faked fakery! I will only write about the professional standards of the Sierra Leone Police. And I will write the truth and shame Lucifer in the process!
On the website of this “Force for Good”, we are told that they have a “Directorate of Professional Standards”. The aims of this Directorate, we are informed, are to “Investigate complaints and allegations of misconduct against a member of the Force”; “work on and analyze information/intelligence on any unethical Police activity from a range of source”; “assist the Police/Organization with individual and organization learning by raising standards”; “deal with issues around service delivery and seek to quickly resolve dissatisfaction with the service we have provided”, and to “deal with issues around service delivery and seek to quickly resolve dissatisfaction with the service we have provided”. Very lofty standards on paper!
And the aim of those lofty standards is because the hierarchy of that “Force for Good” expects the “highest standards of behaviour from our Police Officers and Staff at all times so that we can retain the confidence of our people/country in the standard of policing service we deliver”. I love, and like, dialectics. And dialectical I will be in this One Dropian dropping.
Now I will roll with some rhetorical questions. Since Mr Sovula took over the rudder of the Sierra Leone Police, have our police officers and staff been exhibiting the highest standards of behaviour in carrying out the basics of their basic duties? Have they retained the confidence of majority of the people of Sierra Leone? And have they dealt with issues around service delivery and seek to quickly resolve dissatisfaction with the service they have been providing? I don’t think so because most members of this “Force for Good”, especially the higher-ups, appear to be acting now like the Gestapo in Nazi Germany. And most police personnel are behaving as if they are the armed wing of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) than a force determined to regain public confidence and relevance in society!
Such a fact is not lost on the Institute for Legal Research and Advocacy for Justice (ILRAJ) which, in a press statement of 30 April 2022, advised the Sierra Leone Police to abstain from arbitrary arrests and detentions of citizens because of their critical statements against the Bio-led government. In that statement, the ILRAJ stated further that, “the Police must act in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of Sierra Leone” not by the impulse of the Inspector General of Police or those working at, or walking on, the corridors of power!
This is where the issue of professional standards comes into play making the Directorate of Professional Standards look like a superfluous baggage. Has this Directorate actually been working on and analyzing “information/intelligence on any unethical….activity from a range of source[s]”? I don’t think so. In many cases, we have seen, or heard of, police personnel standing by while unethical activities are taking place, right under their noses, which should have warranted them stepping in to maintain the peace and security of the state.
Evidence abound of the Sierra Leone Police turning a blind eye to unethical activities from, or by, members of the ruling SLPP. When the current Minister of Transport and Aviation, Kabineh Kallon, snatched and destroyed ballot boxes during one of the three reran lone by-election at Constituency 110, and was captured by rolling cameras; the police did nothing. When Abu Abu the Resident Minister North, Austin Johnny an SLPP Young Generation operative, and the SLPP Chairman in Kono District made statements that seemed to be bordering on the exterminations of supporters and stalwarts of the main opposition, the All People’s Congress (APC); the leadership of the Sierra Leone Police was willfully frightened into a state of inertia.
But quite recently the leadership of the Sierra Leone Police awoke from its inertia and invited some APC Members of Parliament to CID headquarters in Freetown for questioning. Their only crime? They had gone to Sambaia Bendugu, in Constituency 056 in the northern Tonkolili District, to campaign in an upcoming by-election on the day allotted to their party by the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL)! This seemingly injustice infuriated the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Hon Chernor Maju Bah aka “Chericoco”, who reportedly stated that, “The police [are] causing problems in Sierra Leone. They are not matching up to what they are expected to do.”
Little wonder the Chief of Mission of the European Union Election Follow-up Mission, Hon. Norbert Neuser on 29 October 2021, noted that the police were part of those institutions whose “reputations are less trusted than is needed.” Indeed, how could majority of Sierra Leoneans trust an institution which seems to believe that what is good for the cow shouldn’t be good for the goat!
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