William Kabba Magbity, Bo
A huge number of Sierra Leoneans resident in Liberia who recently travelled to the border towns of Jendema in a bid to register for the November elections, were reportedly disenfranchised and stopped from getting registered by thugs led by Edie Massallay.Armed with knives, bottles, stones, sticks and hand-bombs, Massallay and his gangs approached the peaceful citizens and forcefully stopped them from exercising their democratic franchises in the southern border town Jendema, Pujehun district.
The continuing biometric voter registration, presently being undertaken by the National Electoral Commission, has rapidly facilitated the registration of eligible voters across the country for the upcoming elections.
Reports from Jendema has hinted this medium of plans hatched by the SLPP to way with the option of wrecking havocs and causing violence prior, during and even after the elections shall have completed.
“Edie Massallay whom I know very well for quite a long time, stopped me and all the Sierra Leoneans citizen who were from Liberia from registering in constituency 91 Jendema. We were attacked by thugs brandishing sticks, knives machetes, broken bottles, and other forms of weaponry and assaulted us not to talk of us registering there,” disclosed the Information Attaché, Sierra Leone Embassy in Morovia.
Madam Coker said their attackers were singing former civil defence forces war songs, chanting satanic slogans in want of their raw blood. She revealed that their lives were threatened and the SLPP thugs could not allow them to register in constituency 91.
Meanwhile Sierra Leoneans in Liberia are prepared and ready to come home and register, in order to enable vote in the approaching elections. It seem as if it a similar situations in other border towns as our sources in Kailahun said SLPP operatives are allegedly denying Sierra Leoneans entering permits into the country to register in that part of the country.
When contacted Edie Massallay last evening balance our account, he did not to talk to this paper directly but connected the reporter with one of his boys, who told The Salone Reporter that they stopped the people from registering on what he described as ‘protocols’. He accused the APC of using the embassy in Monrovia for ferrying people across the country, that’s why “we chased them with knives, matches and sticks”.
The SLPP scribe Sulaiman Banja Tejan Sie could not be reached for a comment.
Jendema is significantly shorter as less than a day journey to and from Liberia, therefore Sierra Leoneans in the neighbouring country deem it fit to drive to the border town and get registered there so that come November 17th this year they will be able to vote in the elections.
The Salone Reporter gathered that the in-roads that have been made by the APC in former opposition heartland have thrown a shock wave in the SLPP camp especially large turnout of Diasporans who have registered since the process started, has posed a serious threat to the unpopular candidacy of Julius Bio and his party. But yet the ex-combatant wants to be the next Sierra Leone president “pao-pa”.
