Abandoned for five years, thugs linked to the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) have threatened to fight back as they face disappointment and maltreatment. Their threats come at a time they are faced with an uncertain future in Bio’s embattled second term. One of the thugs who spoke on condition of anonymity explained how SLPP has disappointed them.
“We are surely going to fight back if SLPP abandons us like that. I and my colleagues fought very hard to bring back SLPP to power after 11 years with the hope that we would reap from the benefit of our labour. But, after five years, we are not better off,” he expressed his frustration.
Another thug also issued similar threats after doing what they call a ‘dirty job’ for the party of their forefathers. Living SLPP thugs are not just the only ones that have been left uncompensated, those who have died in the struggle for the party have been equally left in the cold.
Almost two weeks back, Foday Allieu aka Big Fish crumbled in the hale of precision marksmanship by a young military officer attached State House.
Passers-by and petty-traders came to watch Allieu’s remains as it laid in a pool of blood, a scenario akin to the late Libyan leader, Gaddafi whose body was displayed on the tarmac after a brutal murder in the 2011 uprising. The horror occurred on Lightfoot Boston Street in Freetown where the deceased disarmed a female police officer and threatened to kill everyone around.
His action left the public with questions without answers. Allieu, according to sources, was a staunch SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) member and financier of the party’s 2018 campaigns hoping for rewards by way of contracts and projects to get back his money.
He got nothing after five years, and hope of recovering his money in Bio’s second term remains faint. After years of waiting in vain, Allieu went on the offensive as he insistent request to see President Bio was turned down.
Armed with a machete before the shooting spree, Big Fish was reported to have gone to State House seeking to chop off Bio’s head, but was stopped by security personnel. Today, he is no more.
Government recently comforted, Fatmata Suma who was hit with a stray bullet with Le5, 000, 000 (five million Leones) to help her foot the medical bills. But, compensation for Big Fish’s family is yet to come, a move that raise a large brow on SLPP’s gratefulness to their supporters.
Like Big Fish, Arata was also recently brutally murdered in Freetown by unknown men. Arata is also one of SLPP’s most vicious and notorious thugs who have taken part in several waves of violence in the early days of the Bio regime.
He was remembered for attacking polling staff and destroying election materials in a re-run election of 2019 in Western Rural district. Arata has also joined his ancestors without compensation from SLPP, a party he has been fighting for all along.
SLPP has a history of maltreating those who tirelessly worked for the party and recognise only the diasporans who, many say, pour their resources in the party. Young men and women who were transported from South-East regions during SLPP’s 1, 000, 000 (one million) marches or parades were also similarly abandoned with no food or even shelter let alone jobs which have been their main hope.
The unfortunate youth who found it difficult to return home put up at SLPP headquarters much to the annoyance of the party’s leadership who saw the young guys as thieves and trouble causers. Without any hesitation, police officers were deployed at SLPP office to get the thugs out of the building.
The resistance was sturdy as the thugs engaged the police in running battles leaving behind a trail of destruction. Prior to its renovation, SLPP headquarters had fallen into disrepairs for too long owing to the physical exchanges between actions of the police and the thugs.
The thugs, as usual, lost the battle and the SLPP office was barricaded by police crash bars to keep off men once seen as the party’s barefoot soldiers.
Brutality at SLPP office was taken to the streets as accusing fingers were pointed at SLPP thugs as those responsible for the Sweizy inferno that destroyed property running into millions of Leones.
It remains unclear whether the traders’ wares have been replenished.
In a seeming show of sympathy, government officials were at the trade centre taking stock of the fire victims. The name-taking restored hope of compensation in the affected traders, but unguarded statements from erstwhile police chief, Ambrose Michael Sovula created big doubt.
Without any evidence, Sovula minced no word in referring the Sweizy traders as thieves selling stolen property. “If shops loaded with stolen goods are burned down, who do you blame,” he asked albeit rhetorically.
Sovula’s statement was one that prevented the police from going after the arsonists who, many believed, were SLPP thugs.
As the thugs went uninvestigated other fire incidents surfaced in various communities in Freetown including Susan’s Bay, one of the biggest slums in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown.
For too long, the thugs had been preparing to teach SLPP a big lesson but they were boycotted after the Proportional Representation (PR) also known as the district block system replaced the constituency-based model.
Under the PR system, it is the party that selected members of parliament and not voters. Although it was illegal, the system immensely helped SLPP politicians who were saved from the trouble of meeting grassroot members again for the second time.
No condition existed for a PR system, but SLPP who feared their thugs convinced opposition politicians that the system will ensure peace and security in the campaign period. Owing to the fear, SLPP lost the presidential votes, but open rigging keeps them there. Through such cunning and murky politics, politicians feel they are safe when they are not.