Sierra Leone Telegraph: 27 June 2021:
The shocking death of the younger brother of the wife of the President of Sierra Leone – Mrs Fatima Bio last week, has sparked controversy and police investigations, after Fatima Bio accused a local beach bar restaurant in the outskirt of Freetown of his murder.
Writing on her Facebook page, this is what Fatima said: “You took away the most humble soul from us for whatever reason or reasons is best known to you that killed him. He was well and healthy when he enters WAREHOUSE to eat and drink with his friends only to come out a dead person. It is well.
“My brother does no wrong, he refused to be seen around me just to protect me. He lived like an ordinary man minding his business yet still you targeted him and succeed in causing us such pain. He is gone now and I hope you are happy for your actions.
“I am putting up his picture to remind you that this is my baby brother, he was not a politician or a businessman, he was not a thief or an armed robber, he was my baby brother who played football for eastern lions.
“He loved his family and respected everyone. Why must you take his life away and for what reason? I hope you are happy now. Marabu You are gone and, in the process, you took away my laughter, you also took my faith in humanity.
“Marabu you left me empty fighting to survive by the day. My friend, my brother, my Son is no more. How do you bury your last brother who was meant to be around to help you out in your old age? How do you cope knowing that he is not coming home to have dinner with you no more? How do you accept that your phone would not ring and on the other side is your baby brother just checking up on you?
“How do you cope knowing that there will be a family together, but you will not be there smiling and playing with everyone? How do you cope with the loss of your brother that has always been your first son how?
“Rest Well Marabu I hope and pray that whoever put whatever in your drink will faced God’s judgment soon. We miss you and I MISS YOU DEARLY.
“Signed: Fatima Jabbe Maada Bio”.
But the restaurant being accused of murder has replied back, denying the accusation. Today the management of the restaurant published this statement:
“The Management and Staff of The Warehouse by Evoque (‘The Warehouse’) would like to offer its deepest condolences to the family of the late Mr. Marabu.
“Mr. Marabu was a loyal customer and frequent patron of The Warehouse. On the night of Wednesday, June 23rd, the late Mr. Marabu and two of his companions paid a regular visit to The Warehouse. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, The Warehouse is open only as a restaurant between 6pm and 1am. Neither the deceased nor his companions ordered any food during their time at The Warehouse.
“They ordered two energy drinks and a Guinness. As per our standard policy, energy drinks were served closed, and the Guinness was opened in front of the customer. Mr. Marabu and his companions spent approximately one hour in the establishment and subsequently left on their own accord, without any apparent physical impairments. It is our understanding that Mr. Marabu visited a number of other places prior to The Warehouse, and also at least one other beach bar after The Warehouse.
“The Management and Staff of The Warehouse were informed of Mr. Marabu death in the afternoon of Thursday June 24th and a police investigation is underway. The Warehouse is cooperating fully with the Sierra Leone Police and has complied with all requests for statements and searches. We look forward to having the matter resolved soon.
“Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with Mr. Marabu family and friends during this unfortunate time.”
The police are investigating the cause and circumstances of Marabu’s death.
May Allah, the magnificent and benevolent, have mercy on our brother. May he find, through the power of Allah, his place at the heavenly stool. People, let’s put politics aside and pray for the repose of his soul. If it were your healthy relative who had met such an untimely end you all will be making similar statements. This is natural and please remember that such sentiments should not be political. Let the first lady and her family grieve for their brother. Has it now come to a time when Sierra Leoneans are devoid of compassion because they are blinded by politics and tribalism. None of us, regardless of position in life will be spared of death. Only Allah knows how, when and where. While you are still on earth, you have the opportunity to obey the second best commandment of Allah, that is to love your neighbor as you love yourself. As the scripture says , no one enters the Kingdom of heaven if you hate your brother. You cannot love Allah the father, without loving the Son.
Whilst I sympathise with the boy’s family, and feel their pain, this is a very dangerous statement. She shouldn’t be making such libellous statements. Her brother had frequented the restaurant multiple times and nothing had happened to him previously. She cannot point the finger at anyone till a postmortem has been conducted. Only then can a police investigation be conducted if the postmortem reveals death by poisoning.
This poor boy may have died due to an underlying medical condition and we won’t know till after the postmortem. If I owned a business I wouldn’t want anyone from her family to frequent it now, in case I was accused of murder if anything happened to them afterwards. The first lady in her grief shouldn’t have gone to social media to make libellous accusations without proof. RIP young man…..
Oh salone politics has taken over our entire daily activities and lives. Even when we should be together in terms of mourning. But what do you expect? When you fail to lead you lead to fail. Allahuma akhfirli wa arr hamhu (mr marabu). May Allah have mercy on him (mr marabu).
I don’t think Mr. Marabu Jabbie’s sudden death has anything to do with the 1992 execution. Can we think before we write? If you can’t sympathize with Marabu’s family, well keep quiet.
Can we just take stock of the way we say things and the subject we are talking about. At present we are talking about a young man Mr Marabu, who unfortunately met his untimely death under mysterious circumstances that are under investigation by the police. May his soul rest in peace. As far as Iam concerned, he has never run for office or took part in anything that have caused the underdevelopment of our country. Maybe to some he is a traget because of the accident of birth. But at the end of the day, no one asked him to choose his parents, he just happened through the accident of birth to be related to Mrs Fatima Bio. You can’t chose your family, but you can choose your friends. None of us can claim, never to have lost a relative, a loved one, a friend or a neighbour that we were closed to because thats what it meant to be human.
For any family, the feelings of emptyness, the nut of pain that you feel, not like any other pain you ever had , the regrets, the waking up at night thinking its all a bad dream, that the person will turn up at anytime, their laughter or sadness you share with them, the whats ifs, even their habits, and tricks they used to play with you, this are all part of what makes us human. For me Mrs Fatima Bio, has every right to express her self the way she expressed herself. On a human level, she lost her brother. Like every one of us that find ourselves wearing her shoes, which I hasten I don’t wish it to happen to anyone of our family members, and as we all know how incompetent is our police,maybe thats why she is expressing her fears, when they are faced with murder investigations, just because she happens to be the first lady, doesn’t make this case open and close case.We know accused individuals spend many years in remand because our police are incompetent.
My best advice is to leave it with the investigators. Surely this days is much easier to track down criminals than in the old days when we don’t have DNA evidence, CCTV footage , Mobile phone records,movements of the victims and accused, or even social media postings. Surely this restaurant in question most have all of the above. Then again Sierra Leone is so divided in party political lines, is now part of our DNA sequencing. We just love to gossip about the misfortune of others, we don’t even have time to work for our self development. This case should be left with the police to do their investigation.
I am afraid I disagree. Expressions of grief, yes. However, to accuse someone of the death without evidence would indicate that her perspective of Sierra Leone is negative. What motive would a thriving restaurant have in poisoning the young man? The club has now been closed. This is an egregious abuse of power.
Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty. If all the relatives of people that died in SL went about accusing other persons of their death. The society would be crazy. Has a coroner determined the cause of death? No Then, she has no right to make such a baseless accusation. This is a violation of the rule of law and an arbitrary use of the executive power.
I want to believe that most people here disagree with her not because of the expression of her grief but her accusations (that her brother was poisoned).
Why are we so wicked to our self. Just be strong and have faith in God. People are so wicked all in the name of power.
“Rest Well Marabu I hope and pray that whoever put whatever in your drink will faced God’s judgment soon.” How does she know that her brother’s drink was poisoned before a thorough post mortem examination was conducted? The police are still investigating his death and already she has concluded that his drink was poisoned. This woman is very dangerous. She should not have been any where near the seat of power. I hope the restaurant will sue her for destroying the image of their business and possible loss of income, because now people are going to boycott the business out of fear of being poisoned.
God help us in this country, if she wakes up one morning and tells her gullible husband the president, that some officers in the military are plotting to kill him. He will order their arrest and execution just like he did to those 29 citizens of Sierra Leone that he and his rag tag army coupists slaughtererd in 1992. God save our beloved country.
Dangerous stuff! No one will never again kill our fine and decent Military Officers by bogus or botched up lies. Any one who attempts such malicious and hateful crimes will be held accountable by the next government. “We day na road”. God bless Mr Charles Lebbie for his insight.
@ Foday I Kamara – What statements?
Madam first lady H.E. Fatima Bio I am personally sympathizing with whole family especially you in the picture. If I would advice you and the entire family, this should be my word – we are from God, and to Him we shall return. As a muslim, I faithfully believe that your late brother Mr. Marabu Jabbie’s time to meet with his Lord was up, on June 24, 2021. Whatever happened, that was his destiny and no one can stop that. Conducting an investigation about the sudden death of your brother is not worth it. Sierra Leone is not a develop country that has CSI forensic expertise, to conduct ID (investigative discovery) thoroughly and bring a credible result that will satisfy everyone in the country, like whats happening in USA,UK and so on. such a familiar crime like this has happened here, women, children getting raped and killed. See what happened to our most Iconic musician DJ CLEF. What’s the result to date?
We continue to pray for this country. It is totally wrong for anyone to mock and provoke you at this time. Losing a loved one, none of us can stand it in any how. Let’s trash politics aside. Let us assume that Mr. Marabu was a politician, is it worth it for someone to be happy for his death? Folks, let’s come to our senses, this is rainy seasons, it falls on everyone’s door step. My sister, the first lady of Sierra Leone, H.E. Fatima M.Bio may God continue to have mercy on your late brother’s gentle soul. God knows the truth whatever happened nobody else. Thank you
“God knows the truth”. But the First Lady Fatima Bio Knows the truth as well. Thank you very much Mr Brima Sesay for helping me make that logical comparison between God and First Lady Fatima Bio. This is what the First Lady Fatima Bio said “You took away the most humble soul from us for whatever reason or reasons is best known to you that killed him. He was well and healthy when he enters WAREHOUSE to eat and drink with his friends only to come out a dead person”. You believe In God Mr Brima Sesay, I reckon. But does the First Lady Fatima Bio believes in God? Thank you very much Mr Brima Sesay for believing in God and may God Bless you. May God help me know if the First Lady Fatima Bio believes in God.
Hahaha, my brother Mr. Matturi, long time I love you bro, let’s sympathize with her this is a difficult time for her… love you bro.
I feel for the family, but good Lord, what kind of reckless statement is this? She can just make a statement like this and potentially destroy someone’s livelihood, or worse, endanger their lives with some paopa rahray boys deciding to take matters/justice into their hands? In any civilized country, you would be able to sue her, but alas, our country is I guess not that civilized. I hope she comes to her senses, because we all know if she decides that the restaurant murdered her brother, then the police will some how find out that they did in fact murder her brother
Such statement from such a politically influential person; without post mortem result and with the cops half way in the investigations…is really frightening to me as a Sierra Leonean. Did the President’s wife mentioned that she’s lost faith in humanity? Will her bereaved wrath fall upon our already wretched lives? I feel sorry for the young man that has passed away yet, is that the way our Lady handle loss? Reminds me of Cersei Lannister.
RIP Mr Marabu. May God’s perpetual light shine on you. He looks so handsome. God comfort the first lady and the rest of their family and friends. IJMN.AMEN.
My sincerest condolence to the family for the loss of their beloved one. May his soul rest in Eternal Peace.
May the the soul of this youngman Mr Marabu rest in peace.
My sympathy to the bereaved family. The sudden death of a young energetic person may raise concerns from any quarter of life. Be it your family or not. At least we all have a day in our time that we shall say goodbye to the world,but not when we believe we are unprepared.Let’s take it as destiny as it is only God who knows and shall fight the cause for every purpose. ‘Death’ is the only thing that God made for equity. Death is the necessary end, it will come when it will come. May the soul of the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.
It is not murder and the idle Police will start wasting state resources in the name of investigation because first lady said so.
Be careful with such statements,this is not political time
The accusation of murder should not be cast lightly, as the implications to the restaurant can be devastating.
I remember in Gambia, a young Sierra Leonean who ran a restaurant was locked up for two years on such baseless charges before being freed.
Accused of poisoning a Gambian who had eaten at his restaurant.
The loss of a family member is devastating, however, making innocent people suffer because of that is worse than tyranny. Its despotism and gives an inkling into the mind of the first lady