Sierra Leone Telegraph: 05 June 2026: As drugs addiction among young people in Sierra Leone continues to destroy lives and impact the economy and the wider society, Mayor of Freetown Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr met some of these youth to talk about their lives. “A sad reality is that hundreds of kush addicts now live under every major bridge in Freetown and in the back streets of many communities. Last Saturday morning I engaged a group of kush addicts under Congo Cross Bridge. It was heartbreaking to see their glazed eyes, malnourished bodies and the telltale sores on their feet,” says the Mayor after her engagement. “They acknowledged that they collect waste to pay for kush and then illegally dump the garbage over the Congo Cross bridge or along the roadside. They also expressed their willingness to go to rehab if they had the opportunity. I am committed to investigating pathways for...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 11 June 2026: This has been a troubled week for Mrs Fatima Bio, the wife of Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio, desperately defending her position on female circumcision, following a bruising interview with the BBC the previous week, answering questions about her relationship with Europe’s most wanted cocaine fugitive – Bolle Jos, and her clumsy defence of being a London council tenant. Today, she faces more questions about the legitimacy of her aspiration to become the president of Sierra Leone, once her husband – the former brutal military dictator leaves office in 2028. The constitution of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) of which she is a paid up member, is very clear about who is eligible to become the leader and presidential candidate of the party: Only those currently serving in the most senior leadership role of the party – including the national executive...

Sierra Leone Telegraph:10 June 2026: The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) has announced that its President and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Dr George Agyekum Donkor, has been named as the recipient of the Distinguished African Development Finance Leadership Award – Regional Integration & Economic Transformation at the 16th African Business Leadership Awards (ABLA) 2026. The award, to be conferred by the African Leadership Organisation (UK) Limited and the Editorial Board of African Leadership Magazine, follows a rigorous merit-based evaluation and recognises Dr Donkor’s exceptional stewardship and transformative impact on West Africa’s development finance architecture. In addition to the individual honour, EBID has been formally positioned as a Strategic Development Finance Partner of the ALM Africa Summit 2026, underscoring the Bank’s pivotal role in advancing regional integration, infrastructure financing, enterprise growth, and economic transformation across the ECOWAS region. Dr Donkor has also been invited to serve as...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 10 June 2026: Nigeria’s vice president Senator Kashim Shettima has said Nigeria’s ambition of building a one-trillion-dollar economy is driven by enterprise, investment, and coordinated reforms across all levels of government. He particularly identified Lagos State as the clearest demonstration of how subnational leadership can accelerate national economic transformation. Speaking on Monday when he declared open the Invest Lagos 3.0 Summit held at Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos, the Vice President said the country’s economic future depends on creating conditions that allow capital, innovation, and productive enterprise to thrive. Addressing an audience of policymakers, global investors, entrepreneurs, development institutions, and business leaders, VP Shettima said Lagos has continued to distinguish itself as Nigeria’s foremost economic gateway and one of Africa’s most influential centres for commerce and investment.   Related Source link

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 10 June 2026: Beyond the sad fact that President Julius Maada Bio and his SLPP government have brought shame and suffering to the poor people of Sierra Leone who are ranked one of the poorest in the world, in a country that has no business being poor – given its vast natural resources,  the involvement of the President’s family in the global cocaine trade is now the subject of European economic sanctions against Sierra Leone. Writing in a letter to the European Commission, the leader of the Dutch Members of European Parliament – Malik Azmani MEP, is calling for EU funding to Sierra Leone to be stopped. He wants the Commission to: “Persuade Sierra Leone to extradite drug criminals to EU Member States, and to use the suspension possibility under NDICI-Global Europe as leverage for this purpose; and make the horizontal sanctions regime against transnational organized crime,...

Mohammed Kroma Esq: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 10 June 2026: Sierra Leone’s former Chief Minister and Foreign Minister – Professor David Francis, has written a book. It is titled Governing a Poor Country. Do not be fooled by the academic polish. This is not a study. It is a defence. Francis was the Chief Minister appointed by President Bio. The architect. The CEO of the executive engine. He did not watch the New Direction from the sidelines. He built it. Now he asks us to reflect on poverty. He frames the nation’s economic hardship as a structural cage. An alibi for failure. But poverty is not a shield. It is the condition leadership exists to break. Francis speaks of coordination hubs. The Office of the Chief Minister. Synergies. But synergies do not feed people. Coordination without outcome is administrative theatre. It erodes ministerial autonomy. It centralizes power while the grassroots wait....

Mohammed Kroma Esq: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 09 June 2026: In 2008, following the unauthorised landing of a plane carrying cocaine at Sierra Leone’s Lungi international airport, the country’s response was a radical strike against impunity: a Certificate of Emergency to enact the National Drugs Control Act. The Act redeemed the country because it prioritized sovereignty over discretion. That episode remains the blueprint for how the state must treat organized crime—as a national security emergency rather than an ordinary policing matter. Today, the challenge has expanded beyond the airport to our harbours, our borders, and our diplomatic channels. The problem is no longer just the seizure of drugs. It is the protection of routes, the survival of networks, the use of institutional blind spots, and the persistence of safe havens. It is now time for concerted action towards the formulation of a Roadmap to stem this crisis. A 90-DAY ROADMAP PHASE...

Mohammed Kroma Esq: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 07 June 2026: The removal of Auditor-General Lara Taylor-Pearce on 20 December 2024 was not the conclusion of a lawful accountability process. It was the last act of a three-year constitutional bypass. While the Executive initiated the assault and Parliament sanitized it, the failure of the Rule of Law rests squarely at the door of the Judiciary. As President of the Sierra Leone Bar Association (SLBA), I should have said then what is undeniable now: the Judiciary did not fail by accident; it failed by design. The process was unconstitutional at its inception. On 11 November 2021, the President suspended Madam Taylor-Pearce before a tribunal was engaged. Under Section 137(6) of our Constitution, referral to a tribunal is the non-negotiable condition precedent for any suspension. By inverting this sequence, the Executive acted ultra vires. Had the Supreme Court acted with the urgency the Constitution...

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 07 June 2026: The Commonwealth Observer Group to the 30 April 2026 general elections in Antigua and Barbuda has released its final report, calling for urgent reform of constituency boundaries while commending the overall peaceful and transparent conduct of the polls. The Group reiterated concerns first raised by the 2023 Commonwealth Observer Group regarding constituency boundary delineation, noting that electoral boundaries have remained largely unchanged since 1984 despite significant demographic change. It warned that disparities in voter numbers across constituencies risk undermining the principle of equal suffrage and could affect public confidence in the electoral process. The Group recommended that the government urgently empower the Boundaries Commission to undertake an independent, data-driven redistribution of seats based on the 2022 to 2025 census data. It stressed that the process should be conducted free from political influence to ensure fairness and uphold the principle of one person, one vote....

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 04 June 2026: The 52nd Ordinary Session of the Permanent Representatives’ Committee (PRC) officially opened yesterday, 3 June 2026, at the African Union (AU) Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The session precedes the 49th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council and the 8th Mid-Year Coordination Meeting (MYCM) between the AU, Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and Regional Mechanisms (RMs), scheduled to take place on 27 June 2026 in El Alamein, Egypt. In his opening address, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the AU Commission, acknowledged the multifaceted challenges currently facing the continent, including geopolitical tensions affecting global supply chains, macroeconomic instability, delays in fertilizer imports, ongoing conflicts, and health emergencies such as the recent Ebola outbreak. He noted that external factors, including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, continue to disrupt continental plans. Despite these difficulties, the AUC Chairperson affirmed the Commission’s commitment to redoubling its efforts, implementing...