Sierra Leone Telegraph: 27 July 2022:
President Julius Maada Bio has today sacked the country’s head of police – Inspector General Ambrose Sovula, as speculation and suspicion grow over a mysterious shipping container that arrived in Freetown last week, alleged to contain tons of cocaine imported into the country from Brazil by a senior member of the government, whose identity is yet to be disclosed.
On Monday, police took over control of the container from custom officials at the Water Quay Sea Port in Freetown, after local journalists blew the whistle of suspicion over its content.
Yesterday morning, a bizarre press conference was staged by the police to publicly open the container, but local media are accusing the police of switching the container suspected of carrying tons of cocaine for a similar one carrying frozen chicken.
There is growing suspicion that the container was brought into the country by a senior government minister, under the radar of Inspector General of Police – Sovula (Photo) who has now been sacked for his many gaffes including this alleged cocaine container from Brazil.
Since taking up office in 2020, Inspector General Sovula has become well-known for his inability to manage a professional police force, as he bungled from one gaffe to the next, including the extra-judicial killing of unarmed protesters in Makeni and other northern districts.
Sovula was also implicated in the shooting of unarmed prisoners at the Pademba Road Prisons in Freetown, which lead to the death in cold blood of dozens of prisoners.
Few weeks ago, whistle was blown on Inspector General Sovula’s fake PhD that falsely granted him the title of Dr.
The European Union in a report published last year, criticised Sierra Leone police force for its political meddling and interference in support of the ruling SLPP. The report also accused the police of lacking independence and impartiality.
Today, Sovula has been replaced by Assistant Inspector General Fayia Sellu (Photo) who is currently serving as Director of Crime Services. He had previously served as Regional Director of Police in the Southern Region.
‘Drunkard Samura Kamara’, as monotonously used on the forum, is doubtful whether it is ethically viable as ‘Cocaine Maada Bio’ ?
I personally believe that Inspector General Ambrose Sovula ( who was not perfect) will go down as one of the BEST in the history of our beloved country. During the 2018 presidential election, then lifetime chairman of the APC party promised the voters that he will resign from politics and be an elderly statesman like late former President Tejan Kabba and late Vice President Solomon Berewa. He was 100 % confident that his handpicked stooge Drunkard Samura Kamara will be his successor as late President Siaka Stevens did with late President Momoh during our one party APC dictatorship. Unfortunately, then President Earnest Koroma was so dumb to realize that our country was no longer a one party dictatorship based on the fact that Retired Brigadier ( the father of our democracy) who kicked the APC out of power after 25 years has transformed our country to a multi party democracy.
Fortunately, majority of Sierra Leoneans voted for Retired Brigadier Julius Maada Wonnie Bio twice (first and second rounds) to kick the APC out of power for the second time after 11 years of misrule and thievery.
Based on credible evidence from Dr. Sylvia Blyden who was the Special Adviser to former President Koroma and also cabinet minister, his boss used his puppy in Holland and his handpicked stooge to “make our country ungovernable” and ‘making all sorts of problems” for the Inspector General of the Police whose constitutional Mandate is to protect the lives and properties of our beloved country. Sadly, some gullible supporters of the APC listened to the INCITING audio messages about burning down government infrastructures and trying to spread TERROR in our nation , hoping to overthrow our elected president.
Thankfully, under those difficult circumstances, Inspector General Ambrose Sovula excelled by making our country one of the most stable and PEACEFUL country in Africa . I wish him a happy retirement and hopefully he will once again serve this nation in different capacity.
The new IG is a professional police officer by every definition. He’s intelligent, savvy, insightful, articulate, younger and with greater depth of police functions.
Anyway one thing is clear…overweight IGPs nuh d do well in this climate. The essence of salone policing requires a trim body and an even trimmer mind. Personally, I think Sovula is 60+ and deserves his package. Yet here’s what’s disconcerting. Does this point at a denser dilemma?
Is it possible that the police is…say the word! unmanageable? I mean; Miogbeh,Sovula, and now Sellu. Are they a whole GENERATION of senior officers incapable of following orders and retiring in ignominy. Let’s see how Sellu reignites a police force battered by scandal after scandal…or maybe Sellu’s first point of call should be the recruiting process…I don’t know, I’m not at ease
Indeed this Mansaray families made me a proud as a Sierra Leonean when the speak, you will love them
I love you brothers. Though Ms. Mansaray declined to respond to my request the time when I asked” If she’s related to Mr. Abdulai Mansaray” because according to my opinion, they both writing the almost the same way. Which is even the most illiterate as long as you can read, it needless to use dictionary.
I also thanks our brother that created this noble platform, Mr. Abdul Rashid Thomas may Allah continues to bless him and his family. This forum is a school of knowledge and education, every single person that joins this platform benefitting, indeed it’s a blessing; I wish that I would be able one day to create something similar like this to benefits everybody. May Allah increases on to my knowledge to do just like you brother.
Sierra Leoneans, we have to be very careful on what we say, do to our country. I hope that you find the truth about the alleged” senior government Official” in this allegation, can you bring it in to out attention after finishing with your investigation?. May God protects this country.
I have been consistent in calling out the Inspector General of Police Dr Ambrose M Sovula about his blind and unfettered royalty to Bio or was he? This is what is called “Masking royalty with dark Infedility of the highest order ” Is something of the night about him and by extension putting the security of the state at risks .The enemy within .More like he is trying to undermine the person you claimed to be royal to. In this case the victims is Bio the president and Sierra leone as a whole .Finally the scales on Bio’s eyes have fallen and now the chickens have really come home to roost.You can accused former inspector generals of police that have held that post before him anything under the sun but nothing compared to this scales and magnitude of what our present Inspector General of police is accused of.Now according to constitution an accused is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The seriousness of the charges of drug-running against the inspector general of police should not be taking lightly .If it means calling on the expert advice of the FBI and the DEA to get to the bottom of this story so be it.
Since the United States and the British governments have jointly waged war on the Colombian drug cartels blocking of their shipments of drugs through Caribbean waters , now the Narco chiefs are trying to established shipping routes through West Africa.And we don’t want Sierra Leone to be used as transit point to transport cocaine or any other nefarious drugs to reach European markets.”On the 18th of April 2013 the Guinea Bissau military chief was indicted in a drug scandal for his role in a drugs -for guns conspiracy that involved the Armadas Revolutionarios de Columbia(FARC), a paramilitary group designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States.According to a press release by the US Anthony’s office for the Southern District of New York,the indictments allege that Antonio, Indajai the head of Guinea Bissau military used his official authority to store Cocaine in West Africa for FARC, as well as sell weapons -including surface to air missiles to the terrorist group that has been waging war against the Colombian government since the sixties .”That is why it is important we get to the bottom of this story .
The sacking of Dr Ambrose M Sovula is not enough .He and his accomplice should be arrested and detained whilst the case is investigated.Our Country’s security is too fragile to allow the South Americans drug lords to export their violence in the streets of our Capital Freetown or Sierra leone as a whole .We all know what happened in Hati when president was murdered in cold blood by by former Columbian para-military early this year .
Let the government upgrade the system of education in our country Sierra Leone
I shall comment on some of the comments here, firstly; Sierra Leone is already a transit point for drugs from South America. This is well known by the D.E.A, along with Guinea and other countries in the sub-region.
This is to be expected,as the cartels connive with Nigerian gangsters to export their poison and a bribe of 50-100 thousand U.S can get most officials to give a blind eye.
Brazil from its geographic position is situated directly across the Atlantic from Sierra Leone,hence it would be illogical for the ship to go to Europe first, as the first port of call would be West Africa.
Now in relation to the perpetrators, the South Americans are highly sophisticated and skilled operatives, tangling with the D.E.A does that to you, therefore, I would rule them out from being involved in this debacle.
Nigerian Mafia colluding with elements in the police,customs, government is highly likely. However, since we are so grateful to the Nigerians for bombing, excuse me, saving Freetown. They can export all the drugs in the world.
One thing I know for sure was that Sovula was above 64 years. There have been calls from within the Police itself to have Sovula go on retirement so that officers in their mid or late -fifties can also have the chance to rise up. The retirement age in Sierra Leone is 60 years. Sovula enlisted into the Police in 1980 the same year with the late Brima Acha Kamara. Even if he had enlisted into the force at 18 years, which is 42 years ago, then in 2022 he is due to retire. Richard Moigbe retired at exact 60 years. Francis Munu retired at 62 so president Bio could not kept Sovula until next year when there were already several disaffections from within the senior ranks. Some senior officers like Brima Jah, Thomas Lahai, Amadu Mannah, Bakarr Koroma etc had openly asked that Sovula do not exceed his time.
Concerning the speculation about the importation of a container carrying drugs and fake money into the country, it is difficult and sometimes painful to read so many speculations on things that are crystal clear and factual and which we pretend either deliberately or malevolently,
First containers loaded on ship do not come directly from one port to another. They go through several ports depending on the point of origin. For a container originating from Brazil as insinuated currently for the container in question, it might have berthed at several ports before coming to the Sierra Leone port. Furthermore, each port especially European ports have scanners that scan the ship and its content (containers) for illegal items including drugs, weapons and bombs etc before the ship is allowed to berth at their ports. In addition, each container has a unique number that is on the bill of laden and the bill of laden is prepared at the port of origin. Therefore, switching one container for another as we are all insinuating involves changing the bill of laden or the marking on the container. But in Sierra Leone we are so suspicious of authorities that we spew accusation and sometimes fake information at everything and almost anyone. The container was opened in the presence of the members of the public, NRA and the media. When nothing was found as alleged by those who spread the fake news, we have now changed the story to read that the container was replaced with another overnight. This sometimes makes us as a people look odd. The Sierra Leone Police Mess where the container was inspected in the presence of the press and public is at Kingtom. The Ports where the ship berthed with the container is in the east of the city. Replacing a forty feet container with another, and changing all the papers and or marking cannot be done in secrecy. But this is what we feeding to the gullible masses and then maliciously adding that the container containing the drugs and fake currency belonged to senior government officials. Is this another PULL HIM/HER DOWN syndrome? May Allah help us!
Those who live by the sword die ….,, Ambrose Sovula has fallen – how many more public figures do we have to go? Sovula should see the positive side of his sacking to help him regain his equilibrium. With an investigation pending on the authenticity of his academic qualifications he can now dodge the trauma of public ridicule by sinking himself into the farthest reaches of his home town, wherever that is , and only surface in Freetown every time under cover of darkness. The former police officer has become a fugitive of sorts.
Sovula misunderstood his powers and instinctively believed that whatever he did carried the support of his boss – Maada Bio. He brutalised and detained people without provocation, principally SLPP opponents. Drs Femi Claudius- Cole and Denis Bright know the rest of the story, as well as numerous others. Intoxicated by the impunity which he conjured up while in a mode of hallucination, he allowed himself to be tied to a container carrying illegal drugs. Bio saw it as an opportunity to be ridded of a criminal turned police officer who was further damaging his chances of swinging some Freetown votes next year to his favour in the presidential election.
But Sovula’s problems may have only just begun. The container contains some international undercurrent which could sweep Sovula out of Sierra Leone and into a court of law in some other country which the vessel transversed on the way to Freetown. We shall see. Sovula, never ever trust a politician again, they will sacrifice you in a second to save their skin. Read the history of Siaka Stevens and S.I. Koroma with an analytical mind.
Good riddance the IG should never have been appointed to this position in the first place as he was not qualified. His appointment as IG called in to question the judgement of the President in making appointments. He is yet the worst IG appointed.
It was so embarrassing to watch the drama whilst the suspected container was being emptied putting at risk the resources invested in this food container and yet we want investors to flock to Sierra Leone. There are better ways of doing this.
I hope the new IG will remain professional in discharging his duties and not be pushed around by so called orders from above.
How I knew this guy was a fake professional? When he personally led a delegation of fake riot police officers and a government officers to the Warer Key Port Authority to only open up sea container suspected by journalists and some good Samaritan citizens of storing some illegal drugs. His presence there was suspicious. Good decision Mr. President.