Allegations of police misconduct are widespread, with thousands and thousands of claims across the world. The United States Of America (USA) alone records thousands of these claims each year. The Cato Institute’s National Police Misconduct Reporting Project, one of the most comprehensive research projects examining incidents of police brutality in the U.S., found 4,861 unique reports of police misconduct involving 6,613 sworn officers and 6,826 alleged victims in 2010. If such a project is undertaken in Sierra Leone, the figures will be incredible and unbelievable.
The police needs to be policed or else poor people remain at their mercies as there are some ill-advised officers who may tend to go beyond bounds at the slightest opportunity.
They are powerful and the state and people made them so. They carry the country’s crown which gives them the full authority to ensure that the law is well implemented, law breakers are prosecuted, lives and properties well secured and there is the full maintenance of law and order with peace and tranquility guaranteed.
Today, we however see senior police officers misbehaving at will and nobody gives a hoot about it. In fact, ignorantly and sycophantically, some members of the public praise them for the exhibitions of their excesses in the name of discipline.
If only senior police officers would have emulated the good examples of their well disciplined and no-nonsense boss, the Inspector General (IG) of Police, Francis Munu and a handful of others, the force world have been able to maintain the ‘Force for Good’ name it dubbed for itself under the leadership of the then British Police Chief, Keith Biddle .
When AIG Memuna Konte came to limelight and became a household name in Sierra Leone, she enjoyed lots of commendations and praises from members of the public and even the press. A number of times, this medium had reported the good ‘policeman-ship’ of AIG Memuna. But like many Sierra Leoneans, she became obsessed with the power bestowed on her and started misbehaving. Allegations about her excesses displayed publicly abound. If she has not allegedly slapped a senior citizen, she is allegedly at the throat of another or raining insulting languages on someone. Now she has turned her venom on journalists. That’s perhaps the wrong page.
We are in receipt of a letter from her lawyer ordering AYV to retract a front page story captioned: AIG Memuna Misbehaves. In that letter, this medium was given 72 hours to retract the said story. Apart from the fact that we are not going to retract the story, we want to categorically state here that we stand by our story and we repeat: “AIG Memuna did misbehave,” there is no better word to that. As a matter of fact, AIG Memuna must be ashamed of herself for making such utterances publicly (We have her on tape).
AIG Memuna has gotten too big for her shoes and appears to have bitten more than she can chew. She has hit the wrong nail and will surely pay for her misdemeanor.
