Sierra Leone remains in curfew

The city is almost a ghost town as major shops, malls and virtually all markets and business centres across Freetown and its environs remain closed following yesterday’s (Wed 10 August) bloody demonstration that took more than many lives, both civilians and police officers.

The curfew, which started at 3pm yesterday during the height of the demonstration, is billed to continue to run from 7pm to 7am each day with no definitive time or date of lifting it.

While the curfew continues, Sierra Leoneans are in sombre mood worrying over what next may befall the nation as rumours of night attacks continue to make the rounds through word-of-mouth and social media information.

However, there is a tense calm in town with riot police and army officers deployed at several checkpoints and other identified hotspots in the communities to forestall any further acts of protest.

While the president, H.E. Julius Maada Bio, is yet to speak to the nation, as he was out of the country, the Vice President, Muhammed Juldeh Jalloh, did announce the curfew and called for calm across the country. Other government officials have also called on the people to keep the peace and be law-abiding.

The deputy Minister of Information and Communication, Solomon Jamiru, a lawyer who hailed from the civil society domain, has also called for calm and pleaded with the president to restrain from applying any militant or forceful retaliation to demonstrators or people suspected to be perpetrators of the demonstration. “In moments like this, all of us should look for solutions to address the issues of this situation,” the deputy minister had said over the media.

It would be recalled that on Monday 8 August 2022 the city of Freetown was completely deserted by the masses of people in the country with business activities closed and very few vehicles plying the roads following a month-long rumoured three-day nationwide demonstration  planned  to commence on Monday 8 August 2022.

The wind of information on the cause of the demonstration was saturated with massive discontent by the populace of the country over the state of affairs under the watch of the Bio-led administration. It was rumoured that the demonstration was going to be peacefully held nationwide, although the security apparatus had not received any official request for permission from organisers of the protest or “demonstration against the state”.

The security sector was rightfully proactive to have released a statement to that effect on 6 August stating that it was a “faceless demonstration”, as no one sought or took any permission from them to hold such a protest or demonstration.

However, rumours of the demonstration prevented normal business activities in Freetown on Monday 8 August, although no one actually took to the streets to protest.  And what was thought by security apparatus and some people to have been a gimmick was actualised on Wednesday 10 August 2022as planned, and all hell broke loose.

It must be stated that Sierra Leone today experiences widespread discontent in people from all walks of life, as cost of living generally and conditions of service in especially public institutions, departments and agencies continue to keep people in distressed condition.

Many people in Sierra Leone have continued to complain that the cost of living in the country is rising disproportionately as against the income, revenue, wages and salary generated by the masses both employed and unemployed.

Costs and prices of goods and services continue to rapidly increase as people’s income and wages take a snail’s pace or almost remain stagnant over the months and years. And with the advent of the COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war, which started in February this year, the economic hardship in the country took a drastic swift rise into the stratosphere causing more suffering as more employees go jobless, and trade and business degenerate.

Few days before the August 10 nationwide demonstration that turned bloody, medical doctors of theSierra Leone Medical and Dental Association (SLMDA) were on a sit-down strike because the government decided to cut off or remove their Covid-19 risk allowance from their salary abruptly contrary to laid down agreements, as well as for failure to honour a weekly 45-litre fuel for each doctor and hospital services.

Also, a few months ago the teachers were on strike, refusing to go to the classroom for failure by government to heed to their demand for increase of wages and salary to meet the rapid inflation and rising cost of living in the country.

Furthermore, on 4 July this year, a set of female parents and business women in Freetown and other parts of the country staged a peaceful demonstration in Freetown that got across other parts of the country on account of the unbearable hardship in the country. The women were arrested in the streets and released after some days following interventions by rights organisations in and out of the country. Before these incidents, members of the private sector had also staged a peaceful lockdown-of-shops protest in the country also on account of an “unfavourable” Goods and Sales Tax levied on the business sector by the trade ministry.

All of these were red flags that something fiercer was going to come and indeed August 10, 2022 happened to be that day.