By Thaimu Sasco Ambakoh
The whereabouts of William Yandi Conteh a staunch member of the main opposite All Peoples Congress- APC Party who is also the Regional Legal Adviser for North- West Region of the Republic of Sierra Leone and his lactating wife, Blessing Yandi Conteh has drawn serious concerns by family members, friends and the political class of Constituency 062, Kambia District and Sierra Leone in general.
Those concerned have not yet reached any definitive conclusion as to whether the worse has happened to him and his wife who is breastfeeding their four months old baby.
William has been a target for elements of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) due to his growing influence and popularity in the political landscape of Kambia District. In 2018, he braved it to contest for the the party symbol of the All People’s Congress (APC) for the parliamentary elections, which he lost.
Prior to his entry into politics, William was already known as a Community Mobilizer for social programmes relating to health, livelihood and education. In 2022, he is reported to have rolled out the biggest health project in the district leading to its almost one hundred percent successful implementation.
William reset himself, went in again for the APC party symbol to contest the 2023 general elections. His attempt in 2022 to win the heart and minds of the party’s hierarchy in Kambia District despite having fulfilled all requirements again did not earn him the party symbol, but he assiduously maintained his support for the party and the emerging candidate.
But according to reports, his presence among the APC party’s campaign team and his huge popularity that cuts across the distric, especially in Samu Chiefdom which is a political constituency on its own, made him a direct target by opponents within the APC party and the ruling SLPP candidate and stalwarts which culminated in brazen attack on him during preliminary campaigns and community stakeholders engagements in June, 2022. William’s campaign team was attacked, he narrowly survived an improvised petrol bomb that could have engulfed him into flames of fire. In the ensuing fracas one of his team members sustained injuries resulting in his hospitalisation.
In February, 2024 William almost lost his life in a car accident. He was reportedly invited by a colleague lawyer to meet with an investor that was in search of a legal retainer. Nuts of his vehicle wheels were unscrewed while he was in the business meeting with his colleague and the client. He was returning home when all four tires of his vehicle gave in causing him to crash off the road into a swamp. His life was only saved because he was not on high speed, but he sustained multiple injuries and he was rushed to a nearby hospital.
All of these would not have been a matter for reporting. In May, 2023, William survived another attempt on his life when his bottle of water served along with his food was swapped with one that had been poisoned. He was at an APC campaign when the incident happened. He reportedly drank some quantity of the poisoned water which immediately reacted on him causing serious upsets, vomiting and other related discomforts. He had to be rushed to a hospital in Kambia were doctors were able to stabilise him and the poison flushed out of his system.
On account of these threats, William felt unsafe and insecure and therefore decided to return to his resident in Freetown.
He had barely being in Freetown at No. 27, Aitkins Street, Murray Town Freetown, when the incidents of August 10, 2022 unfolded. He was not a part of the protest but holds the view that citizens must have the right to express their desatisfaction through peaceful demonstrations.
But the threat to his life and his family did not stop, in fact it worsened according to reports.
As if he was being trailed by spies of the government and party in power, his house at No. 27 Aitkins Street was barricaded by plain clothes agents- a mix of regular Sierra Leone Police officers and members of the SLPP notorious gang, the “Soja Team”.
William who was not in the house at the time received photos of the agents in plain clothes in front of his house gate with a packed an unregistered truck.
Soja Team is the paramilitary wing of the SLPP that is notorious for committing most of the heinous crimes associated with the current regime and party in power.
These agents were reportedly seen around William’s house for three consecutive weeks.
Still fearing for his life and the lives of his wife and dependants, he decided to move to Lungi, in Port Loko District. According to reports the house in Freetown was subsequently broken into and was comprehensively ransacked in search of so-called evidence. A similar raid was reportedly conducted on his residence in Kambia.
The barricade and consequent raids on William’s houses in Freetown and in Kambia came in the wake of President Julius Maada Bio’s radio broadcast in which he called for a crackdown on the opposition whom he referred to as behind the protest and calling them “terrorists”.
As the APC party’s Legal Advisor for the North-West Region, he was arrested in one of his hideouts along with other party members who were rounded up in the aftermath of the August 10, 2022 protest. William has in prior instance been arrested and detained more than five times in different parts of the country all in a bid to secure his life and freedom.
William is reported to have been dragged from the police cell in Kambia in early November, 2023 and taken to the notorious detention centre of the paramilitary wing of the Sierra Leone police force, known as the Operations Support Division (OSD) called Benghazi, where he spent a week under rigorous interrogations and he was later released without charge.
This arrest and detention by the police placed William Yandi and his family under the direct surveillance of the state security apparatuses, which could have resulted in his name appearing on the Government’s watchlist of perceived saboteurs and plotters to undermine their administration.
So, when he was released from Benghazi, friends and close associates advised William to leave his Freetown residence at least for a while, given that they have had intelligence that he was being watched and monitored closely.
William, his wife and others dependants, left Freetown to an unpopular area in Lungi, where he left the life because of her condition while he hibernated.
His family was in Lungi when the 23rd November, 2023 coup attempt took place.
William being on the police and SLPP agents’ watchlists automatically became a target in the search and arrest campaign that ensued. How the police and SLPP party agents came to know his house in Lungi (hideout) and other dependants remains a mystery. But according to information, while William was away, the said house was eventually raided in the middle of the night in April, 2024, some residents including Mrs. Blessing Yandi Conteh were temporarily detained in the cold outside the house amid intimidation, beating and the occasional firing of tear gas which suffocated and choked Mrs. Blessing Yandi Conteh who was pregnant at time. She became dizziness and was subsequently taken to the hospital after several complaints of one complication or the other. After several examinations, periodic review and treatment the doctors revealed that Mrs. Blessing Yandi was pregnant at the time of the raid, which has resulted to induced stress affecting futus badly, leading to premature force labour and subsequent miscarriage in May, 2024.
William on getting the sad news about the termination of his wife’s pregnancy amplified his campaign against the police as tools for political repression against opposition party members until the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), a wing of the Sierra Leone Police, that is mostly manipulated by a government in power to get their opponents threatened and arrested. Fabricated charges against William in absentia with offences under the Cyber Crime Act of 2021.
It was at this point, according to sources in Kassirie, the birthplace of William, that he stopped being seen in public. “Nobody can tell you where William went to. He just disappeared along with his family,” a close friend of William said, he is concerned that William and his wife may have been arrested somewhere without the knowledge and information of the family and legal representatives or they could have been terminated.
“That man is a very popular politician, a philanthropist, activist and advocate for best democratic practices. People know him well. He cannot be hiding amongst us here and nobody is seeing him neither hearing from him or his wife. For me and the majority of people who know William and Blessing, we have fears that something fatal must have happened to them that is accounting for thier total disappearance,” Abibatu Bangura stated.
Since their disappearance, no trace has been established as at yet, about their whereabouts, even with such reports being made to the Sierra Leone Police.
Neighbours of William in Freetown, Kassirie and Lungi have explained to this reporter about seeing plain-clothes men in their neighborhood moving in suspicious behaviours around the former residences of William.
It is not known what their intentions are; whether as a plot to distract people’s attention from the physical disappearances of William and Blessing or they are monitoring those houses for clue that could lead to the arrest of William.
Whether William and his family are alive or they have been wiped out from the earth, the fact remains that he is still being hunted by the police that is supposed to safeguard and protect his life, since it is the institution the Constitution gives the right to safeguard and protect lives and properties.