By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
Sierra Leone Police have arrested dozens of opposition All Peoples Congress party supporters in front of their party headquarters in Freetown.
The scuffle broke out between party supporters and Police following a ruling by the High Court which stripped 10 APC Members of Parliament (MP) of their seats.
On Friday morning, the High Court of Sierra Leone ruled on 16 petition cases lodged by the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) against APC MPs. The ruling nullified the winning of 10 APC MPs in Parliament. The ruling also means that the SLPP candidates in all of those constituencies were now declared as MPs because they came second.
However, one of those ten seats was declared vacant and the National Electoral Commission is expected to conduct a bye election in the coming months.
All nine seats are now occupied by SLPP MPs who have been hastily sworn in at the House of Parliament.
The APC party Secretary General, Osman Foday Yansaneh, questioned the legitimacy of the new SLPP MPs and the current Speaker of Parliament.
At Old Railway line where the APC party headquarters is located, there were broken bricks and bottles on the streets. Police at the scene said party supporters within the perimeter of the compound were pelting stones at them.
As a result, Police fired dozens of teargas rounds in the perimeter to smoke the supporters out.
After an hour or two of firing, Police hauled in unarmed protesters. In the process, Police officers used tasers on the arrested APC supporters, whiles dragging and kicking them. All of those arrested were later bundled in to trucks and other Police vehicles and taken to the Criminal Investigation Department.
Mr Yansaneh and a host of other party officials were trapped upstairs in the party headquarters. After coming out later, he said he regretted the actions of the Police and believed they deliberately targeted the party’s supporters.
“I told them (Police) to seize fire. So we can talk to our people to go back to their various locations. If the Police had not been here, it would have been better. But they were here with armoured cars, they were here with combat ready personnel,” Yansaneh said.
He added: “As we told them yesterday, all these days they have been deploying police officers. They were anticipating some trouble which we were not anticipating.”
Later when Politico visited the CID headquarters, some of those who were arrested earlier on were scattered all over the compound. Some were crying in pain, whiles others clearly showed wounds that desperately needed medical attention.
CID officials at the time said they were arranging for a vehicle to take them to hospital once they were done processing them.
As a consequence of the day’s event, APC party officials say they were planning a high level meeting in the coming days and they would be approaching the international community with their concerns.
“The plan is to hold a very important meeting. This time we are going to direct our points to the international community. The international community has contributed immensely to the improvement in a war-torn Sierra Leone. We believe they have a stake,” told a group journalists at the party’s office.
(c) 2019 Politico Online
