By Lamina Brima
Reports reaching The Nationalist newspaper state that the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) are alleged to have declared Ngozi Obi Sesay wanted for allegedly taking part in the 10 August 2022 riot in Freetown, in which about six police personnel were murdered in cold blood and a good number of civilians also lost their lives.
The aftermath of what is now known as August 10th was massive arrests of activists and persons mainly from the main opposition, the All People’s Congress (APC), and subsequent trials with the Sierra Leone Police later publishing a “Wanted List” of those who were believed to be behind it or to have taken part in the riot.
One of those who are reported to be “wanted” is Ngozi Obi Sesay. Although she was a public servant, she is known for being actively involved in political commentaries on both traditional and social media. She is alleged to be one of those who incited other young people via her political commentaries to take to the streets, which eventually led to the deaths of six police personnel and scores of civilians.
Reports indicate that several attempts made by the police to arrest her failed as she is said to have already fled the country.
Family sources earlier on informed The Nationalist newspaper that they had come under several threats from the police who are reported to be still looking for Ngozi Obi Sesay.
Before the August 10 incident, Ngozi Obi Sesay was a member of the Sierra Leone Association of Women in Journalism and also a member of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ). Even though she was working as a government employee at the Electricity and Water Regulatory Commission, she was still critical of the government working in the background to hold the government accountable for serious human rights violations.
Her baptism of fire came in April 2022 when she started getting threatening phone calls in which several callers informed her that they had found out that she was the journalist linked to one Santigie Sesay who had been publishing several articles criticizing the actions of the SLPP government for the Pademba Road Prison massacre.
Ngozi Obi Sesay is said to have reported the phone threats to the police but it was never taken seriously, even after she got home from work one day and was told that some men and a lady had gone to her home looking for her. The police told her that they did not have anything concrete to investigate.
It could be recalled that on 24 August 2022, a Public Notice from the Office of the Press Secretary announced “the establishment of a Special Investigation Committee to examine both the immediate and underlying causes, sources of financing, execution and consequences of the [August 10th ] insurrection, as well as the response of security forces during”.
It is reported that Ngozi Obi Sesay might have fled Sierra Leone because she thinks she might have been one of the targets of the Special Investigation Committee.
What is worrisome is the fact that even before this commencement of the Committee; several people have been tried and sentenced to various fail terms for their alleged part in the August 10th riot.