April 7, 2021
By Ilyasa Baa
The Civil Society Consortium on Accountability and Service Delivery is to hold peaceful protest today calling for the resignation of the Mayor, Her Lordship Aki-Sawyer for hate speech.
The National Coordinator of this Civil Society (CSO) body, Moses Mambu has made a clarion call for a million man march against the Mayor to send signal that there is no space for hate speech in society. Appealing, Mambu said the protest should be taken seriously with large turn out from all the corners of the Municipality.
The Freetown Mayor has been on the spotlight for making derogatory statement against the Mende which is one of the largest ethnic groups in the country through a leaked audio clip. Meanwhile, forty- seven Councilors are planning to stage a peaceful protest on April 8th having written to the Inspector General of Police, Ambrose Sovula for clearance and permit.
Councilor for Ward 480, Sheku Turay said if the Inspector General gives clearance to the CSO, he should as well give them permit to protest as elected officials in the governance of the state. He said instead of the CSO to call for investigation into how the audio got leaked, they are busy shouting for the Mayor’s resignation which he further expressed, should not be the case at any rate.
Another Councilor, Rugiatu Mansaray has called on Freetonians to accept the Mayor’s apology noting that the leaked audio was a calculated attempt to put the Mayor in bad light.
As at press time, it was not clear to members of the public whether the police is going to issue clearance or not as some members of the public are of the view that such protest would lead to violence making the situation difficult for the security officers to handle.