By John Kamara Provincial Correspondent
The Elders Council of the Gbangbani Society in Mayariebo village, in the Karene District, Northern Sierra Leone, are in the hunt for one Lamin Conteh, who was identified as a gay, for allegedly occasioning Grievous Bodily Harm on a senior member which resulted life changing injuries including a dislocated spine.
According to elders spoken to in Mayariebo village, the father of Lamin Conteh, John Yapo Conteh was a senior member of the Gbangbani Society Elders Council and before his death has identified Lamin to be his successor in the society as the rules of the Gbangbani society dictates. But Lamin, who spent all his life in Freetown was seriously against his father’s proposal and he described the Gbangbani Society as archaic and detest its dangerous practices. Sometimes in 2021, Lamin who had been in Banjul, the Gambia came to Sierra Leone and decided to spend some time in his father’s village as he has no peace in his community in Freetown because of his sexual orientation. People in his community in Freetown were making mockery of him and even directed death threats at him which prompted him to go to the Gambia.
Upon reaching his village, members of the Gbangbani Society Elders Council wanted to use that as an opportunity to fulfilled the promise their late colleague made to them that Lamin is his appointed successor. There is a fixed law in the village that, if any appointed successor to the elders council refused to abide by the law or go against the wish of a deceased member, the whole family will be deprived of land to do farming or in some cases banished from the land
Unknowing to Lamin, the Elders Council together with some energetic young members of the Gbangbani Society ganged up to forcefully grabbed Lamin and whisked him to the society bush and performed the rites on him. According to investigations conducted by this writer, the information was leaked to one of Lamins’ paternal aunt and she told Lamin to leave the village immediately. Upon escaping from the village, one of the young society members saw him and informed one of the elders and they decided to chase Lamin. They apprehended Lamin as he was not too conversant with the geography of the village. It was during the scuffle and wrestle that Lamin pushed one of the elders and he fell on a rock where he sustained a broken arm, spine and other serious injuries. Lamin returned to Freetown and later retuned to the Gambia for fear of his life. Efforts to contact Lamin to give us his account of being a gay and now being in the bad books of Gbangbani Society members in his father’s village proved futile. The society elders vowed to seriously manhandle Lamin at any time in the future he travel to Mayariebo or set eyes on him.
Our investigations continues.