By Mabinty M.Kamara
Imagine a community, state or country going for an hour without the presence of a Police force. Peace will evaporate and anarchy will reign. The relevance of a Police force in any society cannot therefore not be overestimated.
Police are responsible to keep the peace, harmony and order. But with these roles come a great deal of responsibilities on their part too. Because the Police are responsible to ensure law and order is kept, at the very least they should be the moral mirror through which society looks itself.
Now, the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) has failed at this woefully. It is hard to know if they are the reflection of the society or if the society reflects them.
This year we have written numerous stories that we had to deal with the Police. In most cases all we wanted was information to support our report. In some cases, they outrightly refused to talk to us, in other cases they showed incompetence by not providing relevant information and in few cases, they reluctantly gave what we needed.
So much for the openness the SLP is claiming.
This is the year when the Police budget catered more for rice than support for the Family Support Unit which is responsible to fight sexual offences.
As if this wasn’t enough, like always, the name of the Police have also been associated with bribery and other corrupt offences.
This year they have probably gone a step worse. In a recent story we covered, a Police officer was accused of raping a 15-year-old girl in Kenema. If the suspect is found guilty then girls in that community would be more scared than ever, because their protectors just became their aggressors. Morality be damned!
With rape, the Police have reportedly compromised so much cases in the country that the First Lady, Fatima Bio, has publicly blamed them for the increase in sexual offences like rape against women and girls in the country.
“Mr. president, I want you to know that the police have committed to working with us since the beginning of this campaign, till date. But I want you to know that most police officers rape our girls and those police officers need to be punished,” Mrs Bio was quoted saying last week during the presentation of the Hands of Our Girls report card to the President at the Siaka Steven Stadium.
That was perhaps the most damning reputational blame anyone has thrown at the Police in recent times. All of this has happened under the leadership of the current Inspector General, Dr Richard Moigbe.
But despite all these terrible examples, there are still good people within the force.
Meet Police Constable Patricia Moinama
This woman is one of the very few people that are probably serving as a thin line between the trust of the people and total mistrust of the Sierra Leone Police. She is not the most known Police officer in the country, but with her little efforts, she has restored sanity in a very chaotic public parking space at Brima Lane, in the east end of Freetown.
Moinama, a traffic Police officer, stands every morning around 7am at Brima Lane. She helps keep order at the grounds. Every morning, whiles hundreds of people from that end attempt to get to the city center, there is total chaos with everyone moving helter-skelter. Thieves and crooked drivers are used to benefitting from the situation. In a crowd full of desperate people who are fighting just to get to work, market or school, thieves have stolen money, phones and other expensive things that they can lay hands on.
Drivers as well love the chaos, so they use the situation to overcharge passengers. Desperate passengers are always forced to pay whiles the others who aren’t willing have to wait for a driver who is keen on obeying the rules.
Constable Moinama have instilled order to what was once a chaotic situation.
These days, she ensures that drivers strictly take passengers from the queue. She also makes sure the passengers are not overcharged during the trip.
Poda-Poda (minibus) and bus drivers understandably don’t like her.
Almost a month since she started working at the junction, she has come into confrontation with several drivers and even some of the dishonest passengers.
A passenger on Tuesday verbally abused her after she offloaded them from a vehicle because they weren’t in the queue. She gracefully continued doing her job.
Contrary to what she is doing, her colleague officers have not shown any concern for passengers in that area. In the past they have helped exploit drivers and ignite the exploitation of passengers.
On days when Moinama is not working, her colleagues care less about how drivers treat passengers or how chaotic the situation at Brima Lane junction is.
Inspector Moinama is a stark contrast to many of her colleagues. If every Police officer turn out like her, then 2020 will be a great year for security and safety.
In 2020
For the larger Sierra Leone Police, it can still be better. The current IGP’s tenure will most likely end in March 2020, according to a recent leaked memo. But IGP Mogbeh can still do some good before he leaves.
Personally, as a journalist, I hope that the Police will be more open to giving information. We DON’T NEED any information that will geopardize their work and we never even ask for such. A proper media orientation and training is therefore needed for officers across the country, starting with the head of Media at Headquarters. This will make everyone’s job easier.
The Police should also embark on a serious community relations exercise, at least to salvage their reputation in the public. One will hope that this is part of the 2020 strategy, it must be. Because trust in the SLP is so low.
The reason why we are concerned is simple; a better Police means better security for all of us.
Copyright © 2019 Politico Online
