The recent US alert, warning its citizens not to venture into certain areas in the country outside Freetown at night, due to a huge increase in violent crimes in the country, is a worrying sign for the country. The advisory made it very clear that the local police lack the resources and training to respond effectively to serious criminal incidents.
The public is worried that a world super power, like the US, will release such an alert against a poor West African country that is desperately trying to rebuild and restore donor and investor confidence into its battered economy by using tourism.
President Bio has, in all of his overseas trips, lured investors to come back home, noting that Sierra Leone is a new destination for doing business. He has reiterated his government’s commitment to improve on the legal environment by legislating new laws that will support new investment into the country.
It is therefore no secret that such a travel note, from the US Embassy, would definitely have impacted negatively on the President Bio’s vision of bringing back the economy on a sound footing.
It is therefore expedient that the SLP and the ONS should not take the usual defense position to counter the US travel alert to its citizens. A responsible security sector should seriously look at the issues raised and go down the drawing board and inject new blood into the modus operandi of the security sector, especially the police, which have the internal primacy for the provision of internal security. The issues raised in the joint ONS and Police press release are untenable. Whether the travel alert was done on or before elections or that it is being put together, twice a year by the US and it falls into categories, is not an issue.
What remains clear is that the police lack the wherewithal to effectively police the country, and this is what the US is saying loud and clearly to its citizens. Citizens are not impressed with the talk of Sierra Leone being ranked as the 3rd most peaceful country in the world. Police visibility, even within Freetown and not even outside Freetown as indicated by the US Travel Guide, is nothing to write home about.
The issue of always putting out press releases when international organizations and countries cast doubt on Sierra Leone’s institutions should be a thing of the past in the New Direction. Even if we contend with some of these international barometers, on Sierra Leone democracy, economic status and security, as the case may be, we should cautiously go to the drawing board and make amends where necessary.
The Sierra Leone Police, in the last few years, has not been able to get its priorities right. Why should the Police concentrate more on secondary issues, like opening up a new Police University at Police Training School, when they have not been able to deliver on their primary responsibility of providing a peaceful and violent free society that will aid economic development?
Recent happenings in the country have continued to record high incidences of rape, sexual harassment, armed robbery and land cases. Communities are getting bigger by the day with emerging settlements and the Police have not been able to match up in terms of providing policing services for these communities, by systematically setting up new Police regions, police stations and posts.
Police response time, visibility and presence should be key to any new Police Strategic Development. Government should be able to equally understand that security is expensive and the police should be given all the necessary budgetary allocations to police the country.
The country should be further spilt up into more police regions and stations, with adequate manpower to make their presence visible in communities. Police patrols in highways and major towns are very much lacking, which creates a field day for thieves and mischief makers. Armed police postings have been concentrated more in commercially viable locations in the name of revenue generation against the primary duty of protecting the ordinary citizens. Invariably dozens of armed police are deployed at strategic business locations across the country.
President Bio, like the late Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, should initiate another police reform to bring the police into speed with regards training and the provision of modern equipment.
Government should also make the police operationally independent and stop interfering into its day-to-day activities. Recruitment into the Police, for the last few years, have taken a regional and political dimension, with politicians using the police as a dumping ground for their thugs or party supporters, who could not compete in lucrative and highly educated or elite jobs.
President Bio To Initiate Another Police Reform
