APA-Freetown (Sierra Leone) The proverbial chips are down and the authorities in Freetown are left picking up the pieces from last month’s abortive attempt to overthrow Julius Maada Bio.
The latest twist in the post-coup saga has been to widen the investigative net to include high-profile politicians.
And they don’t come any higher than former president Ernest Bai Koroma who has been invited for questioning.
Koroma, Sierra Leone’s fourth president between 2007 and 2018 has said he would not only cooperate with the investigators but would also give them his unconditional support to ensure that the rule of law prevails at all time.
He was on Thursday given 24 hours to report to the police after one of his former military aides was named as a possible coup suspect.
The former president who still enjoys widespread support condemned the latest attempt to overthrow his successor Julius Maada Bio and denied any knowledge or involvement, calling on his supporters to exercise restraint and remain ‘within the ambit of the law’.
It was suggested that several officers who had served under him allegedly took part in the bloody abortive coup last month in which 21 people were killed including 13 soldiers.
Rebel soldiers in a bid to overthrow Julius Maada Bio raided the main Wilberforce Barracks and the central prisons along Pademba Road commandeering heavy weaponry and setting over 2000 inmates free.
They were eventually beaten back by loyal troops.
Although multiple arrests have been made, some of the attackers are thought to be still at large and bounties have been put over their heads.
Observers say the armed insurrection points to the precarious nature of Sierra Leone’s shaky democratic stability, coming just months after Mr. Bio won a second term as president.
Bio’s re-election in June barely masked this sometimes deep fractious divisions in Sierra Leone that run along tribal lines which politicians on both sides of the political divide had done little or nothing to assuage.
The mineral-rich country of 8.4 million people went through a devastating civil war which lasted from the early 1990s to 2002.
WN/as/APA