The Police Local Unit Commander in the eastern Sierra Leonean headquarter town of Kenema has told Politico that he ordered the arrest of a local artist for printing political T-shirts "aimed at causing mayhem".
Superintendent David Sahid Koroma said the T-shirts had the inscription "AFTER GBAGBO NA U", an apparent reference to the arrest by the International Criminal Court of the former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo for the violence committed in the aftermath of his clinging on to power.
He said they had intelligence that some youth were planning to put the T-shirts this weekend to cause trouble during the album launch of popular Sierra Leonean musician, Emmerson Bockarie famous for his political lyrics.
The printing of the T-shirts came in the back of pro-government ones with the inscription "AFTER U NA U" which is encouraging incumbent president Ernest Bai Koroma to run for an unconstitutional Third Term.
The artist who is without his right hand, told Politico that he was picked up by police on Thursday afternoon and was not released until night after religious leaders and civil society activists had intervened and was required to report to the police again today.
An opposition party leader in the region, Andrew Fatorma says he awarded the artist the contract and asked that he be arrested instead. The Acting Secretary General of the SLPP said that during the funeral recently of the Resident Minister, East, Juana Smith, the presidential convoy had a truckload of people in governing APC party T-shirts with the inscription "AFTER U NA U". He denied they planned to cause any trouble.
Speaking to Politico he expressed "disappointment" with the police that while those were not arrested they (the opposition) were now being "harassed and intimidated". He said armed police ransacked his house in his absence "traumatising my wife and children who could not sleep throughout the night".
Sounding defiant he said anyone who toyed with Sierra Leone's democracy would face the ICC like the former Ivorian president currently was.
He said he had "no regrets" for arranging for the printing of the T-shirts and would do so again if need be and if resources permitted.
There has been tension since youth started wearing "AFTER U NA U" T-shirts and singing songs with the same lyrics, calling for president Koroma to run for a third term despite the two five-year term limit.
Government has been ambivalent, at best, over the issue. While it issued a press release last year when the talk first surfaced denying any such interest, some government officials have spoken in favour of "the people's right to determine" which way they are run.
A government minister even threatened recently that they would start arresting people for opposing the campaign.
(C) Politico Online 16/05/14
