Democracy was brutally murdered late last week when unknown hooligans physically and verbally attacked the constitutionally and popularly elected Mayor of the Freetown Municipality, Madam Yvonne Aki-Sawyer very close to her Office in Freetown.
It could be recalled that her worship the Mayor of Freetown was sworn into office on the 11th May,2014 twenty-four hours to the inauguration of the new President of Sierra Leone and has just begun an operation to push back traders from the major streets of Freetown when this fateful incident happened to her.
In her statement to the media she has not ascribed the attack to anybody or groups of persons even though she was constantly under verbal attacks from youths based at the Sierra Leone Peoples Party office at Wallace Johnson Street in Freetown since she took up office some weeks ago.
The New Minister of Internal Affairs and the Inspector General of Police had earlier on visited the scene on the very day she was attacked wherein there was conflict between SLPP youths and officials of the City Council over an alleged forceful move by some of these youths to hang a banner carrying the portrait of the President at the gate of the council premises.
Just when they left and the dust had settled the Mayor was making her way out of her office when unknown individuals attacked her and hit her hand with a board. What is very clear is that whosever must have done this act should be condemned and brought to book.
This brings me to the purpose of this piece which is asking where are our Women groups/organizations in an imminent attack on their kind. We have seen them being very vociferous in the past on the need to increase the participation of women in the political land space.Very recently International Observers to the 2018 Elections have also expressed their frustration at the low number of women contesting for positions in the elections as the worst ever in the country’s history.Now that we only have two women as Mayors and one is under attack by hooligans what have they done in the form of condemning this act which has got the tendency to derail further the involvement of more women in the political process of our country. They should not be seen only advocating for the participation of women but should also be seen doing something towards protecting the few who are already in the system from attacks from all sides of the political divide.
We have not even seen the lame duck civil society organizations raising their heads high above to condemn such a brutal and uncivilized act that has no place in our democracy. Why has there been relative silence over such an act on a woman , a mother ,a wife, an aunt etc ?
Government has urged the Police to investigate the incident and bring whoever the perpetrators are to book. This is a welcoming idea but they should go beyond this and take some more very serious measures that would put to rest the issue of security for the Mayor .She has a critical role to play and until 2023 she remains the Mayor of Freetown and towards this end miscreants who are contending with this fact for selfish reasons should try very hard and live with this reality for the sake of peace and democratic tolerance .