Francis Munu is probably the best educated or at the very least the most intelligent Sierra Leonean Inspector General of Police since Joseph Stanley's brief stay at the helm. The latter was not allowed to exhibit his brilliance thanks to the frustration he was subjected to by James Bambay Kamara who is without doubt the worst police boss this country has had since independence not least because of his despicable human rights record that makes Pol Pot's forces in Cambodia look like human rights campaigners if not activists.
That said, the problem with and about Francis Munu, like with the rest of especially the top echelons of the Sierra Leone Police among whom there are, obviously, some decent officers, is the lack of a proper and accountable structure either within or without, to protect citizens against the force of the police force, or to serve as a shock absorber for police officers themselves against their superiors and senior state officials. The retrogressive hands of politics are ripping our police force apart. In fact when Bambay Kamara was a constable Joseph Stanley was an OC, yet he was so politically jumped over the queue that he became IG before him.
To further illustrate the Demacles that political hands have become in the police force, imagine, like it always happens, there is a negative political diktat from a senior politician – let us even say the President who appoints the Inspector General or the Vice President who heads the Police Council or even the Internal Affairs Minister who is the Secretary to that Council. Which layer of redress or checks and balances is open to even the police boss let alone the Assistant Inspectors-General of Police or even those less ranking, if they decide to not carry out that political diktat but instead choose to do real and pro-people policing? As for the IG and Deputy IG they will simply be sacked, or in the case of a less ranking officer they will be punished by being transferred to those police posts deemed prison-like and not promoted for ages despite their hard work.
When Chief Superintendent FUK Dabor decided to do real policing during the 2007 incident in Bo regarding Tom Nyuma's alleged attempt to harm the then opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma, didn't the Finance Minister John Benjamin insult and almost slap Dabor? And I bet if a similar incident was to happen today, wouldn't loyalists of the very Ernest not tear any such police officer to pieces? When around the same time the Local Unit Commander in Kailahun, Superintendent Osman Kamara chose to resign because he did not want to carry out orders from SLPP politicians, in power at the time, no-one listened to his cry. He sacrificed his family's survival by leaving the only job he had if only to stand for what was right. Yet, no institution protected him – not even his bosses at the time who would even not allow him to rejoin the force as he wanted to, after the elections of 2007 when he thought the unnecessary pressure was off him.
Such is the fundamentally flawed nature and warped structure of the SLP that even the best-intentioned senior officers are forced to carry out the worst policing if only to appease the politicians. Otherwise why are they doing so well on international UN peacekeeping duties!
Other cases in point are the recent violent political rumpuses in Bo, Kono and at Fourah Bay which apparently forced Francis Munu to face the public with the swagger of an Adolph Hitler police chief – even if with a tinge of discomfort – to say that the local opposition leader at Fourah Bay, Aziz Carew was neither beaten nor did he slide into a state of comatose. This is shocking albeit not surprising. A nurse who spoke to me at the Connaught hospital but has called me now to say I should not quote her because of the turn of events, said that they referred Aziz to the Intensive Care Unit because he was “unconscious” when he was brought him. She said they even had to feed him intravenously. How could someone feign unconsciousness for almost two days, without food, when they know they will eventually be taken to a police cell and eventually charged, however long they pretended to have passed out.
Hear Francis Munu again as he responded with to a journalist's question on why police did not arrest and charge the governing party MP, Tunday Lewally, like they did the opposition MP Rado Yokie, despite persistent allegations with some photographic evidence that he (Lewally) had hit with a chair and broken the arm of the opposition councillor-elect in Ward 369 at Fourah Bay. The police boss said there was no official complaint made by anyone against Lewally and that the matter was not reported to the police. It is clear the matter did get reported to the police. But let us even assume it was not, does police investigation of the assault on the poor councillor not require them to follow the trail wherever it may lead them to as it did with the stabbing of governing party activist, Lansana Fadika, who was stabbed when he was an opposition executive and no arrests were made but stabbed as an ordinary member of the governing party arrests galore have been made? This is political policing which successive governments have used and abused at the expenses of the massive masses.
A few days to the presidential election in 2002 I got a wakeup call from one Ernest Bai Koroma who was opposition leader at the time. It was passed 1:00 am. Supporters of his candidacy and his All People's Congress party in the diamond-rich Kono had been chased out of the district by leaders and supporters of the then governing Sierra Leone People's Party. The attackers or their inciters apparently included Aiah Abu Koroma who, incidentally, was Ernest's father-in-law. In the retrogressive backward regional politics of our country, the mostly northern voters who'd gone to the eastern district to mine for diamonds were disenfranchised. They were kicked out of the part of the country where they had registered to vote and by law they could only vote where they were registered. I interviewed the father-in-law and the son-in-law – even if political enemies-in-law. Of course it is fair to say that obviously Mr Abu Koroma denied his involvement or that anyone was attacked or driven out of the district as alleged by Ernest and his APC.
In the run-up to the run-off presidential election in 2007 the same Ernest Koroma went to Kailahun district to canvass for votes. While in Segbwema he came under attack apparently by some ruling SLPP party youth opposed to his candidacy. I received a few phone calls from the area and as you can imagine in such situations, as a journalist I had to rely on the police for an independent version. I spoke with the police Local Unit Commander in the area at the time who confirmed to me that the opposition leader had indeed been attacked with stones pelted at his motorcade. The same version given to me by Ernest Koroma himself and one Mohamed Bangura of the PMDC at the time since they had endorsed the APC candidate. Shortly after my report had gone out on the BBC, the police commander in the area apparently came under some political pressure from the government. He was ostensibly forced to deny that he even spoke to me as was reported by a local newspaper.
The pressure police officers are under from politicians is such that it is sometimes unfair to excoriate them when they betray the justice of those who are not in power. But is that not what makes them a force for the state and not for one political party or another, you may want to ask. Yes it is, which is exactly why there must be layers of checks and balances and avenues of redress for police officers. But beneath the veneer of that comfort zone is the fact that we all have consciences which we must not allow to haunt us especially when it involves the safety and security of – and justice for – the less powerful.
Editor's Note:
This article had been written before the latest allegations of kidnap involving the Ward 369 councillor-elect.
In defence of the Police
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