Sierra Leone Democracy In Crisis: BBC Documentary On Sierra Leone Election | Mayor On The Front Line
What’s up guys welcome back to my channel my name is joannis or Joe hatwa I’m a Sierra leonian American living in West Africa and if you want to know about this documentary um what is it called uh mayor on the front line democracy and crisis and it’s about the elections here
In Sierra Leone last year we’re going to talk all about it we’re going to do a play-by-play on the documentary we’re gonna do a live reaction if you want to know what I think about this documentary then this is the video for You All right all right all right we are live on all platforms well we’re not live on all platforms actually we’re live on YouTube and we are live on Instagram so we’re live on YouTube we’re live on Instagram um today is a little bit unconventional because I’m going to have to try to go
Live from two different devices so let me do this a little bit to try to help with the uh the way this is being viewed here um so first of all let me know if you guys can hear me can you guys hear me if you guys can hear me give me a
Thumbs up and also I want you to not only give me a thumbs up but I also want you to tell me where you’re watching from so where you watching from and can you hear me today we’re talking about this documentary this BBC documentary about um Sierra Leon elections
Specifically the current mayor of Sierra Leon the uh the incumbent mayor who’s in her second term we got some comments coming in already um and looks like some people are actually getting the notification so it looks like some things are happening maybe I’m no longer Shadow Bann on
YouTube shout out to that uh so we got a bunch of people joining from Instagram what do we got who do we have we got India in the house okay that’s typical um we got Morocco I see Morocco in the house um where else do we have people watching
From uh healthy with um Irene Love Is Watching from New York Gravedigger is watching from Bronx the BX uh on Force One is watching from London all right cool uh let’s see Jameson said he’s watching but didn’t say where he’s watching from pop workers Liberation Front is watching from
Canada all right who else we have we got olabode from Nigeria we got bakari Frasier watching from San Francisco Sasha D watching from the UK is that D Sasha like my my Niece Sasha um is it Jan janaki with gratitude is watching from Baltimore Diane is watching from New York
Blazian blazia love says a blazian American living in Melbourne Australia okay um Healy with Irena okay says watching from New York okay cool cool cool um Dynamic Deborah says I’m so grateful to be here I feel like I have so much to learn and I hope to dream to visit
Africa one day oh I’m glad to hear that all right cool so we got a bunch of different people on uh let’s see here we got Mr J Kai Kai in the building it’s Kai Kai he says wow today I got the notification I know that notification
Never never works does it uh and Marie Harding’s here hello Joe I can hear you watching from London all right nice um all right so today we’re talking about this documentary uh and this documentary has gotten a lot of scrutiny um also a lot of support uh the BBC they have a um
A series called BBC I uh and BBC Africa which is of course their Africa division is where they do these kind of documentaries and um this one in particular is talking about the political discourse in Sierra Leon um in specific they follow the the current mayor um in her reelection campaign and
Uh the days leading up to it uh so we’re going to talk all about that today there’s a lot to review um it’s pretty controversial um and we already have some comments from Iber so I’ll get to his comments in a section a second but
Before I do uh I do want to just give you guys a little bit of a background on who I am and who you’re talking to and who you’re watching right now right because of course um those of you who are watching may not not be too familiar
With who I am especially if you’re new to the platform so I want to do a quick intro sorry guys I gotta um charge my phone the phone my phone is my battery is dying on my phone right now and um I neglected to charge it
Let’s see if I can get a cord long enough if you guys can see all the chords on the floor here it’s crazy um nope that’s not long enough so I’m going to have to attempt did another another way okay my live just ended that’s interesting out of nowhere Instagram
Just ended my live that was weird uh bear with me guys I’m gonna go back live on Instagram um but before I do I need to plug a few things in great just lost light of course right on schedule solo losing light right on schedule um it is
A little past 900 p.m. hopefully my caretaker saw that the light was out and is going to turn it back on so we’re going to go through this in a moment here um let me go ahead and start sharing my screen okay that wasn’t even the generator it’s just light just came back
So shout out to that uh all right mayor on the front line democracy and crisis today we got some things to discuss uh let me see here um but before we do um let me go back live on Instagram all right sorry guys just give
Me a second all right so we’re back live on Instagram um if you guys noticed the last Instagram live went completely South and just shut off so we’re back live excuse me we’re back live again today we’re talking about um a bbci documentary that they did specifically
On Sierra Leon um and they were talking about the political unrest and um some major events leading up to some very scary moments uh last year during the election season here in Sierra Leone I happen to be here I witnessed some of it um I had a friend who was in the APC
Office when some of it happened and so overall it’s pretty wild uh to say the least and so we’re going to talk about it today not only are we going to talk about this documentary but I have a unique perspective having been in the country at the same time as it was going
On and I reported on it a little bit um at the time right and talked about it a bit um but of course the BBC BBC what they do is they do these these Deep dive documentaries take footage from people they bring cameras out for these things
Um and so they they did a they did a pretty deep dive on this so we’re going to talk about what they decided to do with this documentary and how they spun it um my thoughts on it and um and I think the implications for it so um so
Before we do that though again many of you guys are new right we got new people on YouTube we have some new people on Instagram and not everybody’s familiar with who I am and so before I go into this uh live review of this documentary maybe it makes sense to talk a little
Bit about I am and what I do so first things first is of course again my name is joannis or people call me Joe pagua I’m a Sierra leonan American I live here in Sierra Leon at the moment um what my my job or my role is in this world at
This point in time the way I see it is to bridge the gap between the diaspora and Africans that’s through human interest stories culture lifestyle music news right whatever I can do to try to bring these two two groups together uh someone being culturally American but uh
Ethnically African I kind of have both of those two worlds colliding from time to time in my everyday life and so my goal with this platform is to bring the two groups together the other thing is to get people to visit move and invest on the continent of Africa that’s the
Other goal that I have with this platform and so everything I do is with those things in mind so I have a YouTube channel Instagram page uh Facebook I’m across all platforms right and the brand is authentic African uh so last week um I posted a couple videos about my time
In The Gambia I got two more videos on The Gambia and then I’m moving into my Tanzania video so if any you guys have ever are planning to visit the The Gambia and you’re looking for insight and information on places to eat clubs to go to hotels to stay in all of that
Stuff you can just check out my series on The Gambia but liter but last week specifically I posted two videos on it and there’s a ton of Clips to on YouTube shorts and Instagram that you can find uh this week I have a couple of different posts going
Up uh yesterday I posted five things um wrong with Sierra Leon and that was basically a live that I did on Instagram on Sunday um it was just on Instagram so I took the full live and uploaded it to YouTube um added an intro and an outro
Did some minor edits so if you guys want to see like the top five issues with Sierra Leon and the solutions to those challenges and issues um and you can actually look at it a um in a lot of ways for many parts of the continent of
Africa because I don’t I don’t only talk about specifically challenges that are specific to Sierra Leon these are challenges that are many in many cases continent wide and based on my experiences traveling um to a couple countries around the continent and then having worked at a company that was in 11 countries and
Talking to different people in different places these are challenges that persist around the continent so some of the things I talk about you find anywhere um so Thursday I’m going to do which is tomorrow 10 Stakes 10 mistakes to avoid in uh The Gambia so advice for
When you visit and then I do an interview with the local tour guide uh that I’ll be putting out this weekend so that’ll end The Gambia content and then next week we go straight into all of Tanzania and everything I did in the Tanz in Tanzania over the rest of the
Month and so that’ll be really interesting I hope you guys stick around to check that out um if you haven’t already make sure you like this this content so hit that thumbs up make sure you share this with people you know um anybody who you know planning to move to
The continent of Africa who’s who’s interested in democracy um across the continent of Africa and wants to know what can happen in a country where you have some political unrest and um some some things that can just happen on the continent of Africa this this live is definitely for those folks
Um all right cool so so some of the services I provide to people some people ask me like what exactly do I do so I help people move to West Africa or at least visit so there’s a couple different ways that I do that I can do Consulting so on all things from
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With can help you do that um you can um I also do that for SI early as well uh I’ve done 13 sessions so far in the last however many months I’ve been doing this um I help people with different business ideas I’ve helped somebody do an Airbnb and just helped
Them talk them through what an Airbnb business might look like and they’ve actually set it up I’ve talked to people about manufacturing businesses and transportation businesses also I’ve given people insights into home buying I’ve even made intros to people um and given specific details of what that
Process looks like one person I know is purchasing land um based on an in um an introduction that I’ve made right so that’s some of the the outcomes of some of these sessions what you can expect uh so here’s some testimonials Anita uh benois sabba and Aisha all games some
Testimonials I’m not going to go into the testimonials but you got it um and if you want a book a consultation link is in BIO just click on the link in my bio and you’ll find it there um I also have influencer Services you know any
Brands that want to hire an influencer I do everything from onir on air hosting um live stream hosting panel moderators webinar hosting all that kind of stuff I can do all of that I do inperson stuff and I also do content Services I can create content for Brands as well social
Media Consulting I’ve amassed The Following over 387,000 followers across all platforms so if anybody wants any help building their brands I can help them do that again if you want to do that link is in the profile um sorry link is in my bio um and then
If you want to promote your brand on Instagram you can get in front of folks like taji P Hensen another uh follower who just recently commented is Shaka Kan right so people who have an offline presence who are also online are followers of the platform and if you
Want to promote your brand to this platform you can do so there’s different ways you can do that you could just do pick one one of the different posting types you can do multip multiple posts you do combination type packs there’s a lot of different ways that you can do it
Here’s some previous partner um one of our local artists drizzl who had a song with idri Elba he promoted his single on the platform we have a prominent African weightlifter who broke a world record uh she’s living in Europe she broke a squatting record um and then
We have um ala vitamins which is a vitamin company allnatural vitamin company and one of our best uh Partners we’ve had to date is DTR 360 books um they’re posted pretty well um having quite a substantial reach tons of comments and a pretty good number of
Likes as well so uh so that’s a little bit about what we do in terms of promoting Brands and getting in front of the people that you want to get in front of with uh with my platform again if you want to do that link is in BIO all right so let’s get
Into the story um so real quickly we’ll do an overview um well first so first we’re going to watch the clip on Instagram then I’ll give you my overall thoughts and then I’m going to take you to my final thoughts um major points and then my final thoughts on the documentary I’m
Going to take you through the major points of the documentary and then I’ll give you my thoughts along the way feel free to chime in I’ll be reading comments on Instagram I’ll be reading comments on YouTube I definitely want to hear from you guys but first I think the
Best thing to do is to get right into playing the documentary on screen um not the full documentary because one can’t do that uh considering um copyright issues and two um I I think it’s best we just keep a clip if you want to watch the whole thing there will
Be um I I’ll I’ll put a link in the description of this video afterwards so if you decide that you want to uh watch the full documentary you can watch it there so in the meantime uh let me pull this up I’m also realizing now that I’m going
To have to switch between screens here in a second um um okay so let me let me do this really quickly and see how this works because I think you know what I’ll say about this documentary before I start playing the clip is you know one thing about documentaries is it’s always
Done from the angle of the person who is the person who the the person who’s actually filming it right and so they’re going to have their perspective and so in many cases those perspectives may be slightly skewed based on their own personal belief systems and viewpoints right and so if that’s the
Case I think what you have to to take into account then is um what are you watching right is this an is this an accurate account 100% is this skewed be based on someone else belief systems you know um is it a little bit of both right and I think
That that’s just something that we’re going to have to take into consideration when we start um going through and looking at this because I will tell you when I first watch this you know you have the background music you have so many different things going on um and it
Does pull on the heartstrings it does appeal to your emotions and so um I I think we should just get right into it I think think as a matter of fact I think we shouldn’t waste any more time um so let me let me let me do this let me
Bring this over to this screen uh so that those of you who are watching I don’t know if I can make this full screen but I’ll take the I’ll put the audio on and I’ll try to see if we can let me see if I can zoom in a little
Bit yeah that’s better right for those of you watching on Instagram it’s really tough to see um but okay we’re going to go ahead and the sound is on so we’re going to press play I may pause it a couple times to give context but let’s just press
Play to be clear you heard gunshots and you saw tear gas just now that’s what you were seeing and that’s what you Heard so this is uh mayor Ivan akis soyer who is the subject of this documentary and so they’re obviously training the camera on her in particular and where they are right now is the one of the political parties offices the APC headquarters in Freetown Sierra Leon so
What you’re seeing is the events that happened inside a political party’s headquarters in Freetown sier Leon AB can you hear me we’re in the party office they’re firing light bullets at we’re on the floor we need if you can’t hear that she said we’re in the party office they’re firing live
Bullets at us we’re on the floor and she’s going to say we need Help we had War we’ve had corruption and then we had Ebola now we’re fighting for Democratic freedoms I’ve been mayor of Freetown for the past 5 years during which time my party has been in opposition I promised I would work to transform freetail I know I can do more
Because I’ve spent 5 years with my hands tied behind my back I did think today that gosh I’m not going be putting this on again maybe never depending on the ex election outcomes um but I’m kind of already in campaign mode so yeah well yeah let’s let’s get on with
It my party the APC is one of the two main political parties in s Leon the other party the slpp has been in governance for the past five years in my first term as mayor I’m not really aware and can’t really tell how well you guys can hear
This so just quick synopsis what she explained is she’s the mayor of the opposition party so she is the so okay let me take a step back on the national scale slpp is the party in power right Sierra Le own People’s Party um the other party uh who is not in power
Nationally like in terms of the president is the APC all people’s Congress right um and that is um the party that she belongs to so she being the mayor of Freetown is of the opposing part to the National party this is kind of akin to if you remember in actually
This is a good example in in the state of Georgia the governor is um a republican the mayor the last two Mayors have been Democrats right so similar I mean obviously we’re talking about a um capital city of the country and we’re talking about a larger country um so
Maybe it’s more like looking at if the mayor of Washington DC was um was a Democrat and the president’s a republican right that’s kind of how you can think of it so that’s that’s what she’s expressing right here and and she also said in her earlier statement that
Um because she’s been in the opposition party she says that her hand was hied behind her back right so that’s what you were hearing her say in case you didn’t hear that just wanted to clarify that I tried to work with the government but they okay so um unfortunately it cuts
Off right there and she said I tried to work with the government but unfortunately they rejected me so that’s where it ends um this particular [Applause] video Instagram can you NOP only on YouTube shorts so um if you want to watch the full documentary the full
Documentary is um is going to be in the description but I thought I would just start off with a little bit of that right because it’s you see you get an idea of where it starts and and the situ situation that’s going on what they’re presenting to you so um let me stop
Sharing that and let me present uh back to what I was sharing previously because I think you guys got the gist right like you know uh let’s see what’s going on here let me just there we go there we go all right so let me just give my
Overall thoughts right um I think and and I think this we’ll get into some comments here too so let me start with some of the con comments because I thought this was good and it and and aligns with some of the things that I could say so iter 12 says this uh I
Watched the documentary it was interesting but it definitely felt slanted if I knew nothing about Sierra Leon I would have thought the place was North Korea based on the documentary he also says knowing what I know a lot of stuff was exag gerated for the cameras he also says with that being
Said I still do think the mayor will be our first female president all right so that’s his specific thoughts that’s his thoughts um now I will say this I I’ve watched a few documentaries in my day I spent a lot of time watching documentaries and yes they are almost always slanted um generally
The people who are deciding to do the documentary have a vision already some people who do documentaries are looking to present the outcome that they already went into the documentary with some people they change the documentary based on what they discover so for example I saw a documentary called
Icarus um and it was about um the Lance Armstrong uh and then before the end of it before you knew it it was about doping and using steroids across all sports and and then it got into the Olympics and a number of other things so it went from Lance Armstrong and the Tor
To France and then it ended up being this whole thing on uh on on steroids and in in major sports and in the Olympics and geopolitical issues ETC so sometimes that can happen but many times it is based on somebody’s particular Viewpoint now bbci and and BBC in
General does spend a lot of time talking about attempted coups uh political instability on the continent of Africa because people watch it people comment on it people click on it so um I’m sure they went and came to Sierra Leon I should say with that in mind and
I’m sure that was what they were looking to share as part of this documentary or maybe they came in here looking for something else and this is what came out of it um but just in general just keep that in mind that this is going to be
Done with some sort of a bias um you are following one particular person mostly their story right so the ancillary figures and their particulars don’t really get described or discussed too much so people um who the the mayor who opposed her or the person who ran against her um they don’t really spend
Too much time talking about him or his platform um the national party they don’t really talk to them too much um don’t talk to them much about their thoughts on her right it really did focus on her and look it is called mayor on the front line democracy and crisis
So the expectation is going to be that it focuses on her I’m just explaining that um obviously if you’re watching this documentary it’s going to be sh through the lens of just one individual as opposed to the holistic view of the country in general and that’s just how
It works right so just just expect that if you’re going to watch the documentary um so those are my overall thoughts let’s see if there was anybody else who had any thoughts who did who did watch um Tim black says he’s here watching from uh Jonesburg Georgia uh Smokey C
Says I don’t trust any politicians in Salon um they said they don’t trust anyone okay fine um sang Bay was saying hope Hey Joe lights stay on yeah I know right uh he’s viewing from South Carolina Africa Emer says good day everyone I was in see early on for two
Months the country is facing a lot of challenges for instance water electricity and good roads something I did talk about on a previous live um yeah sang Bay said yes after mer Salon has Hefty infrastructure challenges I spent 18 days days 18 days there between November and December 2022 I want to
Return hopefully this fall or winter 2025 and I met sang B during that time um I did interview him with a group of other folks who came and got their citizenship my laptop crashed but I do have that interview on the cloud so it will eventually come out um so sang just
Want to let you know that but sang is also saying he love the beaches Africa emerge said indeed sang B our people are god-loving individuals and being around them makes you appreciate the genuine connection all right cool so that’s uh just wanted to get to those comments see
If there’s any other comments at all people who watch the documentary um if you haven’t let’s do a play byplay and then you guys watch it and then I’d love to do a compare and contrast in the comments once you guys watch the documentary so first things
First is it opens with a clip from that famous day of the shooting at the APC headquarters um and obviously as the title says it follows the mayor right so she talks about um what she sees as her struggles trying to put through legislation um she said that she was
Actually told that uh the federal government said that they were going to keep her busy so that she could legislate and so that’s kind of how it opens right it opens with the shooting with that scene that you saw in that clip that’s how it opens and it really
It’s one of those things where it’s gripping it’s it’s eye catching it really does get your attention um so yeah so then it goes into her background right uh but first I guess before it goes into that it does talk about her um there were multiple charges against her
Right leading up to the election around disorderly contuct um uh for going live while trying to board a plane um and then it follows her right before she takes a stand and talks about her experience uh and then she talks about being in office and what
That cost this to her family and even thinking like sometimes she wonders if it’s really worth it right then it takes you back to the beginning right um and it goes through and forgive the spelling errors I’m just realizing that but it goes through a back living in London
Then coming to Sierra Leon when Ebola hit so 2014 she made the decision to come um to play whatever part she said she could she came in November 2014 started as a three-month volunteering stint and obviously it’s lasted now 10 years and and obviously eventually she
Became mayor um and next they go back to her being elected mayor in 2018 and what that Journey was been like since um and then they talk about re-election talks and and then specifically what was happening leading up to that so um they have a little bit of a
Conversation um or a little bit just a little bit from gento who ran against her he’s known as a builder here he’s built some different things um locally um and he is uh he was the the mayoral candidate for the um the same party that
The president is from and uh but it was very quick um so he talked about wanting to have clean water supply and clean up free Town um and a number of other things that he said in his in his words that the he he said that the mayor had
Not um actually done right um then it goes back to uh the mayor and she talks about the government and she says she tried to work with the government very early on but they rejected her much like you saw in that in that earlier clip right um and so you
Know okay before I get into that though s sang B had an interesting point he said uh that’s an awesome trajectory from living abroad to now mayor of Freetown yeah so she she grew up in Sierra Leon then sorry I should give that Conta she grew up in si early on
Went to elementary middle and high school here if I’m not mistaken primary and secondary school then I think she went off to University uh in the UK and then came back in 2014 so I think that was a point of a good point to to
Mention um I think that was a some good background on her um so for those of you who aren’t aware right this is this was what it was so then after the Convoy um so there there was a there was kind of a rally right they do these things as where they
Kind of rally as part of the um campaigning um her and her driver kind of uh split ways and um he describes that he was beat up and her laptop was taken from her car and he comes and shows the scars on his back um and what
H and he expresses what happened to him he mentions here that they had three guns on him um and one on his head he um he tells her that she needs to be careful and and to make sure she has um and make sure she has uh you know
Security and that she’s safe and she stays safe and that’s basically what he says to her at that point in time that’s that’s what the the the driver is saying um and of course be when you and and they said and she said the reason why it
Happened is because um there was all the car it said you know vote for uh the mayor and um the the presidential candidate at the time uh the the APC presidential candidate samur Kamara um and so she said in her words she felt like the reason for this assault of the
Alleged assault was um because they had uh the APC flag bearing stuff on it um he didn’t in any way say he knew who did it um well actually sorry did he said he was stopped at a checkpoint um and he I guess he like a little bit of an
Argument ensued um based on the way he described it he was like all right you guys have checked the car enough kind of and um apparently then that was when uh he says he was assaulted so um then she talks about like you know really where she stands what’s what’s
Important to her and one of the big things was climbing um she felt like climate was a really important topic that she wanted to cover um and they get to the root of some of the climate change challenges right so um there was a statistic about um how
Sierra Leon is one of the least polluting countries in the world but one of one of the countries that will be most impacted and that’s kind of the case with all of subsaharan Africa unfortunately subsaharan Africa seems to be the area of the world that will likely be of greatest impact to um
Climate change um and in those of you who believe that humans have an impact on climate change um subsaharan Africa is the least contributors but also going to be the most effective and Sierra Leona is a country that’s on the top of the list in each way so she goes into
Her thought on that um she talks about you know work that needs to be done they specifically go into the mudslide that um that had over a thousand people experienc loss of life um and she this happened when she had already decided she wanted to be mayor but then you know
It was kind of a re it was like a reassurance that this is for her this was a vision that she needed to fulfill um it talks about how she was the first female mayor in nearly 40 years um and she had this idea of free town to Treet
Town where she wanted to plant and grow over one million trees um if I’m not mistaken I think she said the number was 635 trees had been planted to that point um then she talks about what it’s like being a woman in this role and um you
Know how she’s being called stubborn or difficult and she felt as though those aren’t terms given to Men Who operate the same way as she does in those positions um very commonly you’ve heard that said about Hillary Clinton you’ve heard that said about other women in office right A lot of times they
Say um you know people will call them stubborn or difficult or bossy but it’s not um for for what they would say um is attributed to the same behaviors as their male counterparts but never um spoken about their male counterparts in that way I thought it was interesting that
That they that they touched on climate and also I didn’t know about this initiative um and so you know I thought i’ I’d call it out because that’s something that they talk about and then they and then then it goes into the first shooting which I
Reported on I was um about a five minute walk less than a two-minute drive from where the first shooting occurred um and it happened right outside the APC headquarters um I Heard the bullets myself personally one person did experience loss of life um and it happened um with what she was saying was
A peaceful protest outside of the APC office um and she went actually to see where the person was shot and lost their life um she went live and during that live um there was some liquid on the ground that was red and so she had said um this was
Blood and then about 10 minutes later um you know the well actually let me take a step back one of the people it sounded like who were shooting from the BBC said that they had talked to some police and the police said that that red residue in
The in that liquid that you saw was tear gas um she was skeptical many people watching I’m sure was skeptical like is that really tear gas however um when she talked to one of the people from APC her her political party that was there and
She asked them you know is this blood or is this tear gas himself said this is residue from tear gas but there is blood over there where that person got shot so she immediately goes live again and retracted the initial statement um and then that was that kind of snowballed
Into another story against her saying that she was irresponsible you know someone who’s in that position of such Authority and power should not be so irresponsible with information you know and then of course she defended herself of course by saying you know she didn’t go there with ill intent she was
Reporting what she thought was the case um so you know I I thought it was interesting because I I remember all of this as it happened and and let me tell you about that day um that day because this was right around election time and
I’m sitting at home and I’m on the phone um I’m on a client call if I’m not mistaken and I hear gunshots and I don’t know how many I heard but for a second I’m like I thought it might have been something else because I was like I I don’t I
Don’t hear gunshots in Sierra Leon you know as as um as many times as I’ve come here the amount of time that I’ve spent here at the time I was only here um a couple of months living here full-time um but it you know it it took me back to
Living in the Bronx right I lived in the South Bronx for a little while my mom lived there till I was 16 and you know when I go home on breaks I went to boarding school when I go home on breaks you know I hear gunshots all the time
Especially at night right and so I know what they sound like but I just was I was in kind of disbelief I was like this whatever it is um and then I heard screaming right because again I’m about five minute walk so the after effect was about maybe like five less than five
Minutes later because people were running I could hear people screaming and they ran all the way to my block I see people on on bikes I see people in C yelling and screaming it’s chaotic so I go outside to kind of peek my head out the door see what’s going on I’m asking
People what happened they said you know they fire they fire you know so they’re saying they shot they were shooting they were shooting um and and then come to find out later that one person experienced loss of life in that particular circumstance and situation um and it was really unfortunate there was
Some graphic footage and videos of this person um and I reported on it at the time that it happened because it happened I reported on it the next week because people were asking and I and I dealt with it and went through it um that was a pretty wild situation to
Be a part of to be honest with you to hear it live then getting all these phone calls so many people calling what the hell is going on over there you know is everybody safe is everybody okay um and there are a lot of different questions as to what happened that day
You know there um there are two different sides to the story right there’s there’s the folks who were um in the peaceful protest or what they call the peaceful protest they’re folks in the police and and they’re they’re opposing stories right um but we do know somebody experienced a loss of life that
Day and that’s tragic um and he was young and and it was really unfortunate it really is sad um so yeah that was the first of the two uh two shooting events that there were and that was pretty scary to be you know to be here for
That um and so when people talk about coups in Africa and I mentioned this before people are always excited about the idea of a coup you know a lot of times there they’re military takeovers with Bloodshed many times and there is collateral damage in that so as much as
People are so excited about these coups you have to remember there are people in that country that are going to be dealing with it and I can tell you as someone who lives here I don’t want to see a violent coup take over a country I
Do not want to see that uh because I don’t want to see any more people experience loss of life so anyway um that was that let me let me move on to election day so there it goes to election day right she goes and votes Um then if it was an election day it was maybe the week after election day during that next week week um while the votes are being tabulated um she is at the APC office and um a friend of mine was in there too and she was you know I have a friend
Of mine who is in this particular political party I also know people in other political parties too I know people in both political parties to be very clear and I take a very neutral stance I also want to say that as well I take a neutral stance when it comes to
Politics here um especially on a public platform form um I don’t speak about my politics in Sierra Leon um and I didn’t even vote in the last election because I couldn’t um I will be voting in the next election um and you know maybe at that
Time we’ll talk about the the issues at that point in time and who the candidates are but um just to be clear I take no party ly um but I do have a friend that was in there that day and um the voice note that she sent another
Friend of ours was scary to hear to be honest with you she was you could hear how fren she was and um by the time I heard the voice note she was already safe and we knew she was okay but she was in there and so the video that was
Depicted in the documentary um while in the campaign office um is real time what was happening and a woman experienced loss of life you know they we don’t know what was what was the cause it seems as though it may have been um maybe cardiovascular because they were shooting inside tear gas they
Were live rounds so they say um she may have potentially been hit by a live round she may have been hit by uh she may have had respiratory issues based on the the tear gas I’m not really sure and I’m not sure they actually put that out
Um but the family of of hers um they they um they they were interviewed a bit and talked about their experience with losing her and um how you know how sad they were and it was just sad overall and so you know two people experienced loss of life
In the events leading up to this in the capital city um with police force and um and with civilians and so that’s the thing I think that is the toughest part about this is that you you you know someone who grew up in a space where uh you have
First Amendment rights um and you would hope that um that people don’t open fire in you know these kinds of places it does happen um now the the mayor’s position in this and in both cases they both were both situations were unprovoked um if I’m not mistaken the
The police position was they were provoked um and they felt threatened and so they um responded based on that um there are a lot of opinions on the ground and a lot of people who go one way or the other some people say it was exaggerated some people say it’s not true
Um I would say the most important thing to know is that two people experience loss of life and we don’t ever want to see that and in a democracy that we want to Harald and we want to see take our country forward right so a little bit more on Election
Day um then to get to the leg itics of voting and according to BBC an independent Civil Society Observer group the Sierra Leon National electoral watch forecasted a runoff so to be clear in order to win outright for presidency of Sierra Leon you have to
Have at least 55% of the vote if you have under that then they have to do a runoff um and so this Sierra Leon National electoral watch said that no party had 55% of the vote which is needed in order to win outright in fact at a press conference the person
Speaking from on behalf of the sier Leon National electoral watch said they were confident no party had uh had the votes um however the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leon which many people feel um is tied to the spp government read out the final results and it showed with the mayor listening
Intently that the president and the incumbent president slpp won with 56.1% of the vote naming president uh Julius Dr Julius maabo as um renaming him uh reelected president of Sierra Leon um afterward the mayor shown crying and discussing what she says and she says that she felt that the votes were
Were not legitimate and so um this was a point of uh contention and controversy here in country for a while um because you have this you know this independent group saying they are confident that there was there wasn’t enough votes to do a runoff there are other folks saying that this independent group
Didn’t know what they were talking about and they were off uh and so there is there is some clashes and some folks that are saying there’s misinformation and there’s a lot of questions um on on either side as to either why the outcome was the way it
Was or why people think the outcome should have been something different so later on the M the mayor mayor results are different they are done on a different day and so um she had her team go physically collect um ballots or at least the forms with
Ballent counts and um in over 34s of the different um polling stations around Freetown and she said her data showed that she had won 66% of the votes versus 33% of the votes for the opposition but she said because of what had happened under the presidential election she was
Not clear if she would actually still win um and then comes the announcement and you know you zero in they zeroed in on her she’s sitting there and she’s listening intently to the radio um and that the they come online and says that she won with 51% of the votes
So imagine on her side she said she won with 66% of the votes um with the official results that came from uh the the Electoral Commission of Si Leo on the ecsl uh they said she won with only a 1% mark margin of Victory with 51% of the
Vote which um in the Mayoral race that is enough to win outright however she felt that um there was a gross underrepresentation of her votes because that is um in essence 15% difference in what she feels that she won by and so she valid she vowed to challenge the results and that was
Something that she said at the point in time as they were recording and so um and so it ends by saying in November 2023 there was a failed coup according to the government of Sierra Leon which we reported on um and then of course in true BBC fashion they write the situation remains
Unstable in Sierra Leon and that’s how it ends um that’s how the documentary ends and that is where they leave it off and you know I I found it to be a compelling documentary again you know they did really good job with the background music and the narrative um some of it of
Course is as accurate as you can possibly be when you have you know footage of what’s actually happening um and then there are other things that could be left up for interpretation right and so I mean overall I thought it was a a pretty well done documentary um
I do think that there are a lot of people who um who think differently um so itay says what documentary she just joined so it’s called um mayor on the front line and it said is a democracy and crisis and it’s a BBC documentary I’ll put it in I’ll
Put a link in the the YouTube video notes but I also put a I also share a link on um on Instagram as well um well you’ll have to go to I’ll just put the name of it on Instagram in in the description of of this live and then you’ll be able
To go back and and check it out so yeah I mean that that was the documentary that’s my that’s my update that’s my thoughts any any questions or thoughts from anybody who watched um I’d love to hear from you guys did did anybody watch the documentary yet did anybody watch
This documentary yeah mayor on the front lines yes exactly that’s what it’s called it Bay yes um and it’s a BBC e BBC I documentary um okay so look it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of people who have much to say so what we’ll do is um we are going
To bring the live to a close at this point in time and what we’ll do is at a uh at a later time I’d love to kind of read your comments and thoughts after you watch the documentary um if you if you guys get a chance uh um I’m going to
Put a link in the description in the playback notes so if you guys are interested in seeing it it’ll be there um but you know what let’s let’s call it a night you know we’ve gone through it we talked about everything gave you my opinion gave you the play byplay you
Guys know what this documentary is about now and so if you guys want to go watch it feel free to go watch it if you haven’t already um okay here we go shy Bop Rocksteady says I watched it I think on both sides should be recorded for everyone to see
And keep the evil thoughts down uh so yeah I mean I do think that you should you know if you’re going to do a documentary I do think what you should probably do is try your best to to get all parties involved uh involved in the process
Right I think that that’s a super important part of any kind of document documentary film making um in this case obviously was it was from one side um so I definitely recommend you guys be watch it um Hy favorite said late I’ll watch the replay yes definitely watch the
Replay Africa emerge says I haven’t watched it yet so I I definitely encourage you guys to watch it and definitely let me know what you guys think in the comments of this replay so after you watch it come back to this to this um this live video once it’s a
Replay and I want you to put your comments in there and we can engage in a discussion there um I’d be really interesting to hear what you guys think because I myself have my own thought process about it um and I can meet you guys in the comments and we can talk about
It all right guys so we are nearing the end of the hour here um there’s a couple other things that are coming to we’ll be going live with different folks talking about different news stories there’s a lot that we’re going to be doing and so I’m looking forward to being able to to
Bring all this new content to you all and ensure that you guys are up to speed on everything that’s happen happening on the continent all right guys so with that thanks for watching and I’ll see you all on the next Video
Watch the Full Documentary Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_fwvmKNCNo&pp=ygUWbWF5b3Igb24gdGhlIGZyb250bGluZQ%3D%3D
And tell me what you think in the comments…
Join me as we delve into the thought-provoking #BBCAfricaEye documentary featuring Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, the Mayor of Freetown, amid Sierra Leone’s tumultuous election period. As we witness Aki-Sawyerr’s bid for re-election amidst mounting intimidation and violence, we’ll explore the complexities of the democratic process in one of Africa’s poorest countries.
Together, we’ll ponder whether the documentary presents a balanced perspective or if skepticism is warranted. Let’s critically examine the content and consider whether we should wholeheartedly support the narrative portrayed.
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