Officer in charge of operations at the Eastern police division, ASP Edward Aiah Samadia, has in an interview with this medium revealed that, the Sierra Leone Police is well prepared to police the pending local council elections, slated for Saturday, July 5th.
Speaking to Awoko recently in his office, ASP Samadia said, “the Executive Management Board at police headquarters has produced an action plan for the local elections and it is an excerpt of that that we are operating at the moment”.
According to ASP Samadia, this includes policing the pending local council elections before, during and after and then ensuring no major incident occurs “and to ensure we remain neutral and stay independent and do things impartially.”
The Operations Officer said, they have long ago prepared themselves in many ways “we took cognizance of the man power, human resource, material resources and we are even inviting our sister forces like the prisons, fire force and even the military under the Macped protocol”.
Speaking on how people have perceived the Eastern Police before this time, ASP Samadia said, Eastern police station is very strategic and complex and that people’s perception about the division before this time was different from their current perceptions.
“When people think of eastern police, there is always something that people have in mind but we have embarked on serious raiding of ghettos and cartels just to ensure there is sanity within this area, we have put in place measures to ensure we have the required human resource and to see all personnel being top form in policing the coming local council elections.” On crime rate, Samadia said, “crime rate has been reduced drastically because places like fire burn, Sani Abacha street were known for criminals like mobile snatches and robberies used to take place in these areas, but now”, he said, “thieves and criminals have gone far way.”
The Police Operations Officer also assured the community people that they are always around to provide needed security for them and called on them to work with the police.
“I want to assure the community people that the police are almost always with them and we will ensure that we police them well”.
This is their police he said and “they should be proud of their police because when we compare our policing methods and styles in Sierra Leone to other countries in the sub region, we are on top in terms of human right records. The SLP does not meddle with human right violations. Let the community people appreciate us and compare us with other countries. We are very friendly. This is a post war situation and we are able to provide security even though we are unarmed”, Samadia said.
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