The Northern town of Lunsar is now a ghost community as youths and some important personalities seek refuge in the bush at the outskirts of the town to evade police raid.
The escape is directly linked to riots that broke out in April, this year leaving behind a trail of destruction that shocked the conscience of most Sierra Leoneans.
Some Lunsar residents who choose to stay in the town do so with sunken hearts since any of them could be arrested at any time on mere finger pointing.
The riots left the residence of Paramount Chief Bai Koblo Queen in ruins, the police station partially damaged and vehicles burnt down.
As situation is now under control, but police arrests on-going, the main opposition, All Peoples’ Congress has been accused to have incited the riots.
But accounts gathered from the scene of the conflict say otherwise.
Sheik Amara Gbankay is the Deputy Chief Imam of the Bassaria Mosque in Lunsar town.
Sheik Gbankay narrated that he was at the residence of the Paramount Chief on that day with other sheiks including two Egyptian Arabs to recite the whole quoran and to slaughter two cows as a sacrifice for Allah for prosperity in the chiefdom.
“The essence of quoranic recitation is to pray for the chiefdom for development after years of poverty and suffering,” Sheik Gbankay explained.
When the quoran was about to be recited, he went on, he got instructions from the Chief Imam, Alhaji Ibrahim Sorie that they should not recite the whole quoran but stop half way and go home.
Sheik Gbankay said he did as instructed, and they all went home after they had slaughtered the two cows.
Not too long, the Sheik said Lunsar was engulfed in big riots perpetrated by some irate youths who accused the paramount chief of misappropriation of funds meant for the development of the chiefdom.
Sheik Gbankay ruled out completely that the main opposition, APC bore a hand in the riots.
“The conflict in Lunsar town has to do with a strained relationship between the Paramount Chief and the youths of Lunsar,” Sheik Gbankay said.
Almost invariably, Abdul Karim Sesay, a member of the Youth Council and head of a driving project in Lunsar also rendered his own account of the riots.
He said the Lunsar riots were a direct product of a long-held grievance by the local people owing to the closure of the Iron Ore Miner, SL Mining Company.
Although the people were impoverished owing to joblessness, they remain calm and unruffled as they submitted to the passage of time.
He said they were hopeful that come what may Lunsar would be opened up for mining so that livelihoods can be improved and sustained.
However, Karim went on, the people’s patience was cut short by the messages of the youth leader, Ibrahim Kabia, aka Bulgur, a relative of the Paramount Chief who constantly drew the attention of his peers to embezzlement of funds meant for the development of the chiefdom by the Paramount Chief although no evidence was provided in support of such claim.
But, gullibility and ignorance overcame reasoning among the youths as they accepted Kabia’s message hook, line and sinker.
The messages, Karim Sesay explained, sent out by the youth leader made the police to invite him for interrogation.
“The youth leader informed all his colleagues that he had been invited to the police station and they must be ready,” Karim said.
The next morning, Abdul Karim went on, the youth leader showed up at the police station where he was detained.
The youth leader’s detention, Karim said, made the youths to break loose and storm the police station.
Some Police officers escaped as no one was safe not even the Local Unit Commander, Mr Gibril Mohamed Turay whose residence at the police barracks was targeted for destruction.
Owing to the continuous riots at the police station, he said, the youth leader was immediately released from police custody.
The release, Karim explained made no difference to the volatile situation as youths armed with machetes and stones went to the residence of the Paramount Chief in a rowdy manner.
Karim said he later discovered after the riots that the youths broke into the Paramount Chief’s residence, looted and burnt down three motor vehicles.
He said any allegation of APC inciting the riots is completely false.
An Institute of Governance Reform (IGR) report of 2020 seems to have lent credence to the claims made by sheik Amara Gbankay and Karim Sesay.
The report vindicates the main opposition, All Peoples’ Congress (APC) as it says the APC played no role in the Lunsar riots.
‘Poro,’ one of the main secret societies in Sierra Leone could not be completely ruled out of the riots.
The society seen as a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood is held in high esteem among local tribes in Sierra Leone.
It trains young men in the use of herbs to cure ailments, but most importantly, in the art of warfare.
The ‘Poro’ warfare was indeed displayed in the Lunsar riots.
An eyewitness, Elizabeth Tarawallie explained that one of the ring leaders of the riots was bullet-proof and invisible owing to ‘Poro’ magical powers.
The Iron ore Miner, SL Mining Company which entered into a 25-year agreement with Sierra Leone Government in December, 2017 was the main source of the grievance between the community people and the authorities.
The 2017 agreement resulted into the issuance of large-scale mining licence dated 5th December, 2017 by government to SL Mining Company for the exploitation of Iron Ore in Lunsar for 25-years.
The situation that existed in Lunsar indicates that the community people of whom a large number are land owners want the company to invest in their community while government says otherwise.
The community people’s preference for SL Mining over any other Iron Ore miner cannot be divorced from the assistance they got from the company and signs of sound investment in its short period of existence in Lunsar town.
Improvement in livelihoods was another factor for the love enjoyed by the company from the community people.
John Santigie Sesay is the headman of Compound Village which hosts houses built by the first Iron Ore Miner in Lunsar town known as the Sierra Leone Development Company (DELCO) which started mining operations there between 1930 and 1975.
Pa Sesay sees SL Mining Company as the best Iron Ore miner that Lunsar has never seen.
“We the people of Lunsar want the company to stay with us than any other company because of its assistance to the poor people in its short time of arrival,” Pa Sesay said.
The situation in Lunsar town shows that the people need no other Iron Ore miner other than SL Mining Company.
The cancellation of the mining licence held by SL Mining Company was the start of the grievance between the community people and the government.
No Mining in Lunsar town means poverty, suffering and hardship of a community that depends on hand-to-mouth survival.
The Paramount Chief seen as a symbol of government in the community became the target of brutality by the youths.