*MAADA BIO’S WAR AGAINST AFRICANIST PRESS HAS COST SIERRA LEONE FORTUNES*
By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah
Last year, an investigation by Africanist Press uncovered that Sierra Leonean officials paid at least US$5 million to cyber intelligence groups, including the Israeli-based Cognyte Technologies Limited for cyber intelligence services and tools that were mostly used to target political opponents of the Maada Bio administration.
Africanist Press discovered that the funds were directly transferred by the Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) between July 2021 and October 2022 to the Israel-based Cognyte Technologies Limited and North Star Enterprise as payments for cyber intelligence solutions and for the supply of public order equipment to security agencies in Sierra Leone.
Our investigation found that a total of US$2,211,025.72 was paid to North Star Enterprise to supply special public order equipment to the Sierra Leone Police; few weeks ahead of the August 10th massacre.
Africanist Press also discovered five specific transactions amounting to US$831,999.80 that were paid directly to Cognyte on 7th July 2021 in various amounts ranging from US$84,316.00 to US$155,000.00 and US$218,841.82 to US$310,000.00. The payments were ordered by the Office of the President and authorized by Ministry of Finance officials after the enactment of the new cyber security legislation.
In addition to the July 2021 payments, two further payments in separate amounts of US$310,000 and another amount of US$630,000 were also processed and transferred to Cognyte Technologies on 1st October 2021 and 10th May 2022 respectively.
In total, Africanist Press found that the Central Bank of Sierra Leone transferred over US$2 million to Cognyte Technologies during the first 12 months following the new law on cyber security.
In addition to the Cognyte transactions, Africanist Press also found that a total of US$2,211,025.72 was simultaneously paid to another company listed as North Star Enterprise to supply special public order equipment to the Sierra Leone Police.
Our investigation discovered that these payments were also processed between 11th January 2022 and 18th July 2022 in multiple amounts ranging from US$184,252.14 to US$210,573.88. The payments were processed in 11 different transactions by banking officials in Sierra Leone, and transferred directly to the United States in the name of North Star Enterprise through the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) in New York.
Evidence shows that Sierra Leonean security agencies, including the Office of National Security (ONS) and Sierra Leone Police, employed the procured cyber services and public order equipment in cyber surveillance activities and other intelligence operations targeting journalists of the Africanist Press as part of a transnational operation designed to silence and criminalize our work.
The sponsored war against Africanist Press has been ongoing since then and waged by foreign operatives and their local allies from London to Washington, and from Florida to Israel, and Lebanon to Kenya, Tanzania, and Freetown.
Transactions of Sierra Leonean embassies in Washington, Ankara, London, and the country’s consulate office in Florida, show details of these operations. Part of their unsuccessful efforts have been to criminalize Africanist Press and our genuine work, and to seek to convince foreign governments that Africanist Press is a front for dissident elements.
Records show that agents of these hired intelligence groups and PR firms met with Sierra Leone police leaders and the internal affairs ministry since at least March 2022, at the height of the reported police violence against citizens in Serra Leone and they were provincial advice and training for the Sierra Leone police ahead of the state-instigated protests and massacre of August 2022.
This week, local agents of these hired operatives in Freetown have been talking about Maada Bio’s supposed new efforts to hire Jerry Torres and the Mercury firm as PR agents, but what they are actually trying to hide is that Jerry Torres and other operatives from the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe have been to Freetown since March 2022 and they have been actively working with Sierra Leone’s Police authorities ever since on diverse surveillance operations against democratic critics of the Bio regime.
Sierra Leone’s politicians and their allied agents in civil society and the media are fully aware of the operations of these hired agencies. Many of them are also directly paid from government funds to serve as social media agents for the Bio regime to assist these hired PR firms in its larger disinformation campaigns in the country.
In April 2021, for instance, local PR efforts to help launder the corrupt image of the Bio regime and to counter publications of the Africanist Press also included series of presidential media appearances on local TV and radio stations and a town hall event held in Freetown where Maada Bio was provided a platform to respond to details of the revealing publications of the Africanist Press. At that event, Maada Bio mentioned his plans for the 2022 electoral reforms including his desire to use the problematic proportional representation system and his intention to dismantle the audit service. The event was organized by local journalists and civil society activists aligned to both ruling and opposition parties in the country.
Thus, the money paid to cyber surveillance groups and domestic and foreign PR companies to counter Africanist Press in 2021 and 2022 alone would have built 12 standard hospitals and refurbished the FBC campus with relative ease.
Whether they want to admit it or not, it is obvious that the war against Africanist Press has cost Sierra Leone fortunes. Sadly, it is a war that involves Sierra Leone politicians from ruling and opposition parties, and backed by journalists who are acting in concert with foreign surveillance groups and PR companies. Unfortunately, they have been very unsuccessful in their transnational efforts to silence Africanist Press and criminalize our genuine work.
This is why we now insist that what we need in Sierra Leone today is not just an investigation into the elections, but a real examination of these various groups and how they created and contributed to the troubling political and economic disaster that Sierra Leone faces today.
Sierra Leone can not be dangerous for ordinary citizens but safe for the politicians and their international financial actors. We must expose that mask of hostility that has been purposefully designed to crowd out genuine voices against kleptocracy and exploitation.
As Sierra Leonean citizens, we must not surrender our rights to speak up against kleptocracy and authoritarianism no matter how hard they try to stop us. The truth has a life of its own that can’t be extinguished.
Happy Friday to you all…!!
Chernoh Alpha M. Bah
Africanist Press
USA
——- africanistpress.com ———
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