By Sulaiman Jalloh
Assigned by my media house, I left Sierra Leone to attend the official inauguration of Liberia’s twenty-sixth President, Joseph N. Boakai, on the grounds of the Capitol Building, the Legislative branch of Government on 22ndJanuary, 2024.
My security experience is worth sharing with for obvious reasons best known to many travellers in the subregion. On the eve of my return to Sierra Leone, after the inaugural ceremony, I was attacked by armed robbers in Monrovia whose intention was to have me killed, but many thanks to God Almighty they didn’t succeed in their devilish act. This is what happened. While riding a motorbike in Monrovia at around 9PM, unknown men attacked me and took away the motorbike. The strange part of this is that passersby stood by as I was severely beaten and injured accompanied with body pains.
As a journalist, whose work is to serve the public by given them accurate and balance news, I was thrilled to visit neighbouring Liberia to provide coverage for the swearing in of their new leader, but such adventure took another trend at my dismay, while experiencing such a horrible nightmare. I wonder how other citizens and residents are living in that part of the continent! Due to what happened in the presence of people, I’m still wondering why people could not come to my rescue. I was even told that the leader of the criminal gang is well known in the community. How come an individual of such criminal nature is allowed to live among peaceful citizens?
With such anunfortunate worrying incident, the country security sector should heighten their preparedness and presence to actually save lives and properties in adherence to their overarching mandate.
Border securityis also a concern. Checks for contraband and other illegal items should be intensified as the security checks I witnessed were not thorough.
Copyright –Published in Expo Times News on Monday, February 5th, 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)