By: Alusine Rehme Wilson
Despite votes being counted, the winner of the Nieni Chiefdom in Koinadugu District long awaited Paramount Chieftaincy Election is yet to be declared by the election’s returning officer Simenon Fatoma, who doubles as the Provincial Secretary of the Northeast Region.
This follows sudden misbehaviors of some supporters of the three other candidates that secured the list number of votes took to pelting stones on the roof of the Yifin town court barray where the elections took place.
The pelting of stone was so intense that the Sierra Leone Police in the Northeast region intervened by firing tear gases as a remedy to halt the standoff which they eventually succeeded on, and thus paved the way for the continuation of the counting of the individual votes being casted in favor of each of the four candidates.
Out of the total number of five hundred and six – (506) votes casted by Tribal Authorities from all nine sections in the Nieni Chiefdom, the four candidates that were been cleared as fit to aspire for the chiefdom’s vacant Paramount Chief seat on May 17, 2022, Robert Yireh Koroma earned the highest votes-(294) followed by Foday Manso Koroma-(193), Sheku Umaro Koroma with 15 votes and Foday Manso Koroma who only earned 2 votes, the same to the total number of invalid votes noticed from the voting.
But at the end, there was a big drama which became visible when the election’s Returning Officer in the Person of the Provincial Secretary in the Northeast Region in the person of Simenon Fatoma desists from declaring the winner as well as updated the gathering about the status of the race saying he has resolved to doing so “because of the tension mounted” at the elections center.
Emphasises that no further pronouncement was made last Friday after pelting of stones obstructed some part of the counting, thanks to the Sierra Leone for halting the unfortunate upheaval, said the election's returning officer, Fatorma.
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