Sierra Leone Telegraph: 24 February 2021:
Sierra Leone’s main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) party politician – Dr Sylvia Olayinka Blyden has raised fresh alarm concerning her safety and well-being under the SLPP-led Government of President Julius Maada Bio.
Dr. Sylvia Blyden expressed her fears last weekend, after the Sierra Leone Police officially confirmed to journalists that a recently leaked notice marked for the attention of INTERPOL for her arrest, was authentic and not a hoax.
On Friday 19th February 2021, the official Police Spokesman, Superintendent Kamara, told a pro-government radio station that two senior police officers have since been sacked for being involved in the leaking of the notice to INTERPOL.
The leaked document falsely notifies INTERPOL that Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden has “fled justice” from Sierra Leone and gone to hide in Guinea. The leaked Sierra Leone document then requested international assistance to bring her back from Guinea “under police escort” to face justice in Sierra Leone.
But the truth is that Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden has not left Sierra Leone since August 2019 when she returned home from America.
This false notice issued to INTERPOL by Sierra Leone police has puzzled many in Sierra Leone, prompting questions about their motive.
The evasive response of the Police Spokesman on radio last Friday 19th February 2021, was even more bizarre, when he confessed that the document is authentic, but refused to explain why a false alert was issued to INTERPOL for the arrest of Dr Blyden.
As the INTERPOL notice went viral on social media on 5th February, Dr. Blyden late on Friday 19th February released a statement debunking the notice, alongside the video clip showing the police spokesman radio interview.
Last Sunday, Dr. Sylvia Blyden posted the following on social media:
“Hi Fellow Sierra Leoneans, please read what a top international security expert just sent to me on this issue of that very false notice against me to INTERPOL documenting that I have run away and now hiding in Guinea:-
“Sylvia, this Interpol issue and the silence from Ernest Koroma APC leadership to protect you, is becoming concerning. I saw the SL Police Spokesman interview on video. So it’s true that they wrote to Interpol Guinea knowing fully well that you are alive and well in Sierra Leone. That sounds ominous. Take it very seriously!!”
“That is a gimmick usually done by rogue regimes to “disappear” their political opponents “in cold blood” and pretend they don’t even know where they were. They will now publicize their pre-dated memo to Interpol with the impression you have not been in country for sometime now, but in neighbouring Guinea. They would tell the Press … ‘look we even wrote to the National Central Bureau (NCB) in Guinea requesting that they send her and others back; we have no idea where she is.’”
“Sylvia, note that Ernest Koroma is under serious BLACKMAIL and he will not say anything if they kill you. Nothing may come out of it. The SLPP establishment now control the mainstream media in SL and the international media outlets like BBC Umaru Fofana; they will laboriously publish that lie!”
“I advise you write to all the key embassies in Freetown and international human rights organizations. That regime is up to something sinister!! Don’t leave it lying.” END.
After Dr. Blyden released the above advise sent to her from someone she refers to as “a top international security expert who has worked for the U.N. at very high levels,” a senior government official told Awareness Times newspaper that the Government “has no sinister plans against Dr. Sylvia Blyden”.
Writing in a WhatsApp response, the Government spokesman told Awareness Times that “The issue at hand is police unprofessionalism. As you would have known by now, this is not a murderous regime. Like all other administrations, we might make mistakes but they are not malice-induced mistakes. They are NOT mistakes of the heart. That is why we welcome constructive criticism.”
Dr. Blyden is currently pursuing a Supreme Court case against the 2018 election victory of president Julius Maada Bio.
I wonder why politicians never really keep to their promises. This woman promised to release more than a hundred video messages to us but stopped after less than a dozen.
The formation of Men’s Attitudes, Jacgues Ellul writes that “Public opinion can only express itself through channels which are provided by the Mass Media of communication – without which there could be no propaganda”. What Bio our president, who also doubles as Sierra leone Police dog handler, has succeeded in doing, is to use one of his toolkits, of political deception and psychological manipulation, suppressing of information, by crowding it out, shepherding the minds of people to stop listening to others arguments, by simply diverting their attention. In Bio’s orbit, truth comes as an after-thought. Was there any coincidence, this INTERPOL POLICE GATE WARRANT, issued came in the week that Dr Bylden was arguing her case in front of supreme court judges, in trying to overturn the Bio 2018 presidential elections?
More like if Bio’s DREAM TEAM OF LAWYERS, are being humbled by the arguments put forward by Dr Blyden, why can’t Bio search through his toolkit of diversion from the real issues, and remove the leash from his attack dogs in the form of our Sierra leone police force. Under this present Inspector General Mr Ambrose M. Sovula, the Sierra leone police force is no more an independent institution. They are now part of the SLPP propaganda machine. All pretence of believing in the independence of the police force is a fool’s errand. Constitutionally the police and Army are free from government control. They are there to serve and protect the people of Sierra Leone and the country itself.