The alleged perpetrator

By Lawrence Williams

A 13-year-old victim of persistent sexual abuse has aborted a pregnancy few days after her parents discovered that she was impregnated by a family friend.

Mary (not her real name) said she aborted the pregnancy after drinking some tabs she bought from a drug peddler.

According to the mother of the victim, the suspect, Mr. Quee, 50, is a very close friend to her husband and family.  She said they usually exchange common favours with Mr. Quee and she occasionally sends her daughter to take things to and from Mr. Quee’s house. The mother said more often than not, Mary would go to Mr. Quee’s house accompanied by her younger sister and so she could not have suspected anything was going on between them.

Speaking to the victim, she said the whole affair started in March this year when she first went to collect about 60 cups of rice from Mr. Quee.

“He had promised to give my family the rice so they sent me and my younger sister to go and collect the rice,” she said.

Narrating her experience, the innocent, pale-faced Mary said: “When we got to the house, Mr. Quee gave his phone to my younger sister to play game whilst he took me inside his room, pushed me on the bed, gripped my mouth, removed my clothes and pressed his penis right inside my vagina.” 

She added that the experience was very excruciating.

Asked why she did not tell her parents, she said Mr. Quee threatened her not to tell anyone otherwise the blood that oozed out from her vagina would fight against her and would cause her to go mad.

Speaking further, Mary said Mr. Quee slept with her more than two occasions.

“Every time we went to his house, he would give his phone to my younger sister to play game and then lured me into his room and sexually abused me,” she cried.

Speaking how she came to abort the pregnancy, Mary said she stole Le 10,000 (1 dollar) from her mother and bought some tablets from a drug peddler which she drank to terminate the pregnancy. She said she did so secretly because her aunty had broadcasted the news of her being pregnant to the entire community and she was very ashamed of people calling her names and pointing fingers at her.

She explained that after taking the tablets, she began to experience stomach pain and bleeding.

She said: “The pain was very severe. But one morning when I went to the toilet, I felt something like a lizard coming out of my vagina.” 

Approaching the police at Akon Police Station (located at the back of American Embassy) where the matter was being investigated, they confirmed that in Mr. Quee’s statement, he affirmed that he slept with the victim but doubted whether the pregnancy came from his loins. According to the police, the suspect told them that in the first instance when Mary’s mother confronted Quee with the issue, he gave the sum of Le 250,000.00 to Mary’s mother to abort the pregnancy and begged her not to reveal his evil deeds to anyone.

But the mother had earlier stated that she knew nothing about the abortion.

“When she collapsed at the police station, we immediately rushed her to the hospital. That was the time I knew that my daughter had committed abortion,” the mother explains.

Though Mary claimed her mother was unaware of the medicines she took to abort the pregnancy, a concern citizen has questioned the veracity of that statement on the grounds that no pregnancy-killer tablet is sold for Le 10,000.00. This citizen is suspicious of how Mary came to know that those tablets would terminate the pregnancy.

Another resident within the area holds the view that both the mother and Mr. Quee are duty-bearers whose responsibilities are to provide care, guidance and mentorship for Mary but instead connived to destroy her future.

Conversing with some youth in the neighbourhood, they told this writer that sexual abuse of minors is very common in their community and that the community elders, stakeholders are very complacent about it. These youth claimed that their community is not safe for women and girls. They further intimated this press that Mr. Quee is a building contractor who has money. They say he is particularly fond of playing with young girls but cannot tell whether Mary is the first to have fallen prey to Quee’s romancing antics.

Mary, on the other hand, is coming from a poor family that can barely afford three balanced diets a day.   

During our engagement with Mary’s mother, we came to learn that Mary’s cousin who is also 13 years of age has been abused by one alias Jericho. The abuse took place in the same compound where Mary and her family reside.

The police at Akon also confirmed that Jericho was in their custody. They informed this press that Jericho had earlier raped a minor of which he was being investigated for before this latest complaint was filed against him.

It is not yet clear whether Jericho is a serial rapist but sources within the community have it that Jericho is in the habit of abusing young girls. The Leicester Road/Tree Planting is a community where both the rich and poor are simply cohabiting. It is home to lawyers, doctors, policemen and other people of higher caliber but the high rate of sexual abuse of girls, as alluded to by the youth, leaves one to ponder over the future of children growing up in the community.

23 August 2019.

Some managers and owners of radio stations in the country have raised concern over the dollarization of payment for the use of radio frequency spectrum payable to the National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM).

In a meeting with managers of radio and television stations on regulatory compliance and enforcement held at the National Stadium Atlantic Hall past Wednesday, these managers called on their regulatory body to de-dollarize the payment of spectrum fees and to adopt a fixed Leone rate for licensing of spectrum frequencies across the board.

This call by radio station managers came at a time the Bank of Sierra Leone has instituted strict monetary policy measures to curtail the pervasive dollarization of economic and financial activities vis-a-vis the overall impact of exchange rate changes on inflation.

It should be recalled that NATCOM recently shut down several radio stations who defaulted in paying their annual license fees, including those who were broadcasting without a guaranteed legal status. Nonetheless, the Commission has rescinded its decision to create room for the affected parties to comply within a reasonable timeframe. 

By Lawrence Williams

The recent outburst of the Resident Minister North, Hon. Abu A. Koroma could have triggered an unanticipated social disorder in the whole northern region if His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio had not reacted speedily by distancing himself from the remarks of the minister and at the same time suspending him from office with immediate effect.

Analysts on mainstream media as well as the vuvuzelas on social media have not spared the minister any nice comments but bashing and blasting.

In a short video that has already gone viral on social media, Hon. Koroma is seen making divisive partisan comments and further threatening to kill anyone who dares to protest against the government or attempts to engage in a riot.

It is believed that the conduct of the resident minister not only misrepresents the position of government in addressing recent spates of violence across the country but his threats of “shoot-to kill” clearly undermine President Bio’s avow proclamation of acting within the confines of the law to curb lawlessness and indiscipline in the country. Furthermore, such remarks by no less a person than the resident minister, being the direct representative of the president in the whole northern region with the powers to exercise executive powers and authority granted under the 1991 Constitution, has caused a great deal of embarrassment to His Excellency both in and out of the country. Though some people welcomed the decision by the president to suspend his this loosed resident minister, many are of the view that suspension is a lukewarm punishment when taking into account the gravity of the statement and the potential damage it could have caused the country to suffer at a time when violence, disruptive and widely destructive conflict behavior has apparently become the new order.

By Lawrence Williams

Sierra Leoneans should brace up for frequent thunderstorms, heavy winds this rainy season resulting from the direct impacts of climate change on the environment. The likely unprecedented nature in which these occurrences will take place is strongly associated with climate change and human-induced activities such as deforestation for logging and charcoal burning, and indiscriminate construction of unplanned and uncoordinated settlements.

Sierra Leone is listed among countries most prone to experience climate change and natural disasters. Its population of about 7.2 million is at great risk and remains vulnerable to major ecological threats of water shortage and food scarcity, according to scientific projections in this year’s Global Peace Index.

The GPI estimated that hundreds of millions of people worldwide will be hit by water and food insecurity by 2025, and sub-Saharan Africa would be the most affected region. Studies show that many African countries already faced food insecurity before the Covid-19 pandemic, and Sierra Leone is one among fifteen countries ranked at the bottom of the Global Food Security Index 2019.

Two of the world’s largest exporters – Kazakhstan and Vietnam – have temporarily suspended wheat flour and rice exports amid Covid-19. This may likely create shortages in countries like Sierra Leone that strongly depend on imports.

The GPI projections also suggest that extreme weather conditions are likely to cause major disruptions to industrial agriculture and water conservation. It predicts major flooding resulting from an astronomical rise in sea levels and heat temperatures would occur in this region.

The Meteorological Agency’s seasonal forecasts last November indicated a rise in heat temperatures of about 35 – 37 degrees Celsius during the dry season, with Freetown and Makeni the hardest hit. Because this prediction in many ways turned out to be true we now turn back to the Agency to hear its predictions for the rainy season and to know whether they agree or disagree with the GPI projections.

The Agency’s Director-General, Ibrahim Sinneh Kamara, told Fritong Post that Sierra Leone would experience low rainfall in the rainy season and this will affect crop production.

“Low rainfall will affect crop production this year and farmers will suffer huge losses if the Ministry of Agriculture does not advise them on the best crops and rice varieties to plant,” he said.

Kamara asked that this information be cascaded to rural communities to help farmers better prepare for the worse if need be.

He said the heavy winds and thunderstorms experienced lately are the attendant consequences of low rainfall but more importantly signaled that climate change projections for this region – Gulf of Guinea – are real.

Though the DG did not wholesomely agree with the entirety of the GPI projections, he however affirmed the strong belief that the conclusions contained therein cannot be overstated.

“Those people are experts in the field of Meteorological Science. But I think that we should conduct a national survey to gather more specific data, identify specific threats and come up with more concrete and realistic predictions. This will then inform policy formulation and adaptation and response plan to mitigate the risks and impact of climate change in Sierra Leone,” Sinneh Kamara stated.

Mr. Kamara further said that the massive deforestation for the construction of unplanned and uncoordinated settlements along the Freetown Peninsula could aggravate several risk factors that could trigger a mudslide or landslide to occur in that area. He predicted that such disaster could happen in the future if regulations are not put in place now to control it.

He believes that widespread public education and awareness-raising on climate change and its attendant consequences; strong early warning systems and effective legal frameworks can change the narrative in terms of strengthening Sierra Leone’s adaption and response mechanisms toward climate change.

The Government strategies, objectives and policy actions for disaster prevention and mitigation are clearly articulated in the National Medium-Term Development Plan. 

President Bio on many occasions has affirmed his government’s commitment to protecting the environment. He told the nation in this year’s State Opening of Parliament that his government is pursuing policy actions that will bring about a change in environmental governance, forest management and ecosystem conservation. 

The United Nations Environmental Programme projects that almost all sub-Saharan African countries will be water-scarce by 2025.

Sierra Leone’s Medium-Term Development Plan indicated that almost half of the population of Sierra Leone has no access to safe drinking water, and only 13 percent of the population has access to improved sanitation facilities.

The demand for water in Sierra Leone has increased considerably over the past years. The increasing demand is driven by population growth, increased economic and industrial activities. The huge demand for water use for domestic purposes as well, especially during the lockdown measures implemented by the government, has led to some communal disputes that resulted in an open confrontation between affected communities and law enforcement agents.

The Speaker of Parliament has announced Sierra Leone’s suspension from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association(CPA).

In yesterday’s plenary sitting, the Rt. Hon. Abass Bundu publicly disclosed that the suspension came as a result of the country’s failure to honour its financial obligation to the CPA for the year 2019.

The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association was established to support the work of Parliamentarians in Commonwealth countries; and to help them identify and implement benchmarks of good governance in their respective countries, and to also abide by the principles and values of the Commonwealth.

Expressing his disappointment over the news, Hon. Ibrahim Tawa Conteh representingConstituency 132 asserted that thesuspension does not bode well for the international reputation of the country.

He questioned why Sierra Leone could not pay its annual subscription to the CPA for 2019 even though Parliament has received over sixteen billion Leones as budgetary support from the Ministry of Finance. The suspension of Sierra from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association means that the country will not take part in the 64th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference thatwill bring together over 500 parliamentarians, parliamentary staff and decision makers from across the Commonwealth. This event is scheduled to take place from the 22^nd to the 29^th of September 2019 at the CPA Uganda Branchand theParliament of Uganda.