An enemy cannot access your house, prison or defensive fortifications unless by complicity with people from within.
Such bold and destabilising actions cannot be made without help from others mostly from those with permission to order the release of weapons and prisoners.
The question that was put to this medium by sources we had approached on the events of 26th November is: where were the heads of the police, army, prison, ONS and internal affairs when the enemy accessed the nation’s stockpile of machineries of death, made away with some, and then headed to the prison at Pademba Road, got a hold of the keys and set all the prisoners free?
Isn’t there anyone among these men who did not know that such an event was going to be staged?
And if they knew, why didn’t they try to stop it before it went as far as people losing their lives and the people of this country left in the dark, running helter-skelter to their homes without any public or private transport to take them to their destinations?
That said, how can a bunch of former and current soldiers of the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF) enter the nation’s arms dump at Wilberforce Barracks, secure arms and ammunition and then head to the country’s main prison and set prisoners free, some with very dangerous records that had committed some hair-raising crimes?
For this brazen act of defiance that could have destabilised the nation, heads of the nation’s security apparatus MUST RESIGN with investigations launched into their dealings.
The president is expected to take a leading and active interest in the investigation of this affair as the next guess into what the ultimate aim and objective of those that carried out the actions of Sunday, 26th November, 2023 would be to unseat the president and make way for a military junta.
According to our sources at the nation’s corridor of power, the belief is that the men that are responsible for all the shootings and freeing of prisoners from the central prison at Pademba Road were aided and abetted by many hands operating from the shadows.
While the dust is yet to settle on this issue, it is a best practice and an expectation that the heads of the aforementioned security apparatus, the Sierra Leone Police, Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces, Correctional Services, Office of National Security, and the Minister of Internal Affairs must step down to make way for investigators to do their job.
The idea is that should they be involved, if we allow them to continue in their positions they will interfere and that will not lead us to the bottom of what happened on Sunday, 26th November.
We especially want to know what was their aim and ultimate objective.
But, as long as the heads of these state security appendages are in their positions we should not expect for the hidden hands that we suspect to be in cahoots with these people to be exposed.
Some would go as far as getting rid of those that might point them out as being involved. We expect for His Excellency the President to take an active role and interest in this investigation. This is not time for sacred cows, as no sacred cow should be a part of this affair.
At present there are arms and ammunition in the hands of men trained in the art of war.
All of this is being compounded by the release of dangerous criminals from the prison which presents a whole set of difficulties for members of the public such people might come in contact with as they continue on their escape to their various destinations.
The real fear now is not what happened on Sunday. The real fear now is where are all these arms and ammunition?
Another real fear is how were these men able to access the prison and set prisoners free? Who was in control of lockup at the prison and how was he or she convinced to free people?
We believe that there are a lot of questions that need answers we can only get from either those that made the attempt or those that assisted them from within the nation’s security sector.
This press learned that prisoners walked out of their cells without the kind of resistance one should expect from armed guards which portends to a breakdown in the chain of command.
Mr President, if you check yourself, if you check from within, you will find out the rest.
There are enemies within that you need to flush or your time as president will be under great peril. It is not a secret that out of all government workers, the president has treated the members of the security sector well in terms of pay, perks and other remunerations.
How then did this happen under their watch without anyone getting a hold of such an intelligence to prevent what happened on Sunday, 26th November? The fact that these people were able to access the arms depot and get a hold of weapons of war and then march to the nation’s prison and free people without resistance meant that they operated as a syndicate.
The president must investigate to see what went wrong and by whose complicity or action.
In the meantime, in the interest of getting to the bottom of this, the heads of the SLP, RSLAF, ONS, Correctional Services and Minister of Internal Affairs MUST all step down.