By Ragan M. Conteh
Due to lack of effective and efficient leadership in the Sierra Leone Police (SLP), over the years, some police stations nationwide are reported facing perpetual outage, lack of furniture and adequate resources to do their work.
One of the most deteriorating police stations is the Eacon Police Station, otherwise known as Hill Top Police Station, which is an arm’s length from the United States Embassy. The station, according to report, is without electricity or good furniture.
It could be recalled that, when the new Inspector General of Police, Ambrose Michael Sovula, took over the SLP, a few months ago, he promised to bring discipline and sanity to the Force as well as to make electricity sustainable in police stations where electricity exists.
When this medium visited the Eacon Police Station, it was engulfed in complete darkness, and there was no sitting accommodation, while the structure of the police station is dilapidated and unfit for human use.
The Officer-in-Charge, Sergeant Robert, refused to comment regarding the unsightly condition of the police station.
This medium also discovered that many of the police officers assigned to that community have been accused of bad policing, including one police officer nicknamed Hot Korpor, meaning in English ‘Hot Money.’
When interviewed on allegations levied against him by community stakeholders, Hot Korpor denied any wrongdoing, adding that the people complaining him are the lawless ones who do not want to obey law and order.
Residents in the community called for the frequent supervision of the police station by police authorities and the need to restructure the police station for good policing, as many of them complained of some young police officers terrorizing peaceful citizens.
In Yele, Gbonkolenken Chiefdom in the Tonkolili district, the condition of the police station is nothing to write home about, as there is no furniture, no electricity and inadequate personnel to man the entire community.
Yele is a large community with over 10,000 people and high crime rate but, unfortunately, there are only four police officers serving that large community.
According to one of the police officers that spoke to this medium, on condition of anonymity, “We have repeatedly reported to our superiors about the small number of personnel in Yele serving about four chiefdoms. We cannot cover all the four chiefdoms because of the mining activities in the various communities with a huge number of Ghanaian miners and other nationals. We often received reports of assault from the various communities but we are overstretched and cannot cover all those communities.”
Stakeholders of Gbonkolenken Chiefdom have therefore called on the Inspector General to swiftly look into the aforesaid concerns raised to immediately address them.
Normor Farma Chiefdom, in the Kenema District, also faces a similar situation and when this medium recently visited the chiefdom, it discovered that there were only two personnel attached to the police post in that chiefdom, despite it has a large reserve of the Gola Forest where unscrupulous people attempt illicit mining.
The chiefdom also shares boundary with neighbouring Liberia, which boundary is also a dangerous entry point smugglers could be using to enter into Sierra Leone.
Like the police stations visited by this medium, many other police stations around the country are unsightly and therefore need immediate rehabilitation or reconstruction by the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL).