Political violence after regime change in Sierra Leone has become a new normal as it keeps happening immediately after election results are announced.
It happened when the All Peoples Congress (APC) party took over power from the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) in 2007 and the worse of it when SLPP took power in 2018 from the APC.
As always, supporters of the other side become victims simply because they do not share the same political ideology.
The case of one Mohamed Salieu Barrie who is a businessman, former Chairman of Sierra Leone Commercial Motor Bike Riders Union-Lungi and also a paid-up member of the APC is not different from others who have suffered in the hands of those who considered them to be their strongest opponents.
Investigation undertaken by Salone Times revealed that Mohamed Salieu Barrie has been on the run since he escaped from hospital on 21st May 2018.
That after the announcement of President Bio as President elect on the 4th of April 2018, that on the 5th April 2018, he (Mohamed Salieu Barrie) was mercilessly beaten by a group of men around his house in the morning hours and later regain consciousness at the Lungi Government Hospital.
That the beating of Mohamed Salieu Barrie is not unconnected to the fact that he served as a Party Agent for the APC at Constituency 076, Ansarul Islamic Secondary School in Lungi and stopped the SLPP from executing their rigging plan during the 2018 election.
That during the counting of votes, Mohamed Salieu Barrie insisted that six boxes without their serial numbers recorded before voting commenced should not be counted.
And that when the boxes were opened in the presence of both their District Chairmen in the persons of Edie William representing SLPP and Mohamed Sahid Kamara representing APC, it was discovered that the boxes contain ballot papers voted for the SLPP, which result to cancellation.
What came out clear during an investigation by this medium is that the SLPP Chairman made threatening remarks against Mohamed Salieu Barrie for standing in their way.
