By: Alusine Rehme Wilson
Following acute scarcity of petroleum products precisely Petrol in the municipality of Makeni and its environs for almost a week now despite recent increase in the commodity’s pump price from Le 18,000 to Le 22,000, Commercial Motorbike Riders in the areas on Monday, July 4, 2022 suspended their routine services to members of the public demanding government’s intervention.
It all started as early as 6:00am when some group of men identified to be commercial motorbike riders stormed strategic areas in Makeni city hunting their colleagues that will come out for routine riding, no surprise there was absolutely no commercial motorbike seen moving around the municipality as usual except for some privately owned.
The situation has been experienced for the first time since July, 2020 when curfew was declared in the northeastern city of Makeni following a generator riot.
Throughout the early morning hours of yesterday, school going pupils attending various schools in Makeni and its surroundings, security guards, persons with disability, civil servants, traders and public servants where all visibly seen piling from their houses to schools, offices and other places of work except for few others who were fortunate to afford petrol for their private owned motor bikes and vehicles that were saved from the piling to and from their work places.
Many people including university students and school going pupils had to walk to cover distances of about 300 to 900 meters away from their homes to get to their workplaces, attend colleges and schools grace that most public schools were able to commence their third term examination but some private schools had to send their pupils home over fear of an upcoming uprising.
Hours later, there were wide spread of rumors that everyone especially business people, commercial motor drivers and bike riders must stay home and refrain from running their business or else risk being attacked and looted by some invisible group of protesters and behold there many shops and business centers where all closed except for mini-restaurants and banks that were up and running on the day.
As of the time of compiling this report the situation remained the same, not even “the proactive public sensitization canvassing people to go about their normal business” that was mounted by the Sierra Leone Police in the Northeast region paid off.
Some of the people interviewed expressed frustrations over the fuel station owners for failing to sell fuel but only sells to Black-Marketers who in turn sells the product at exuberant prices between Le 35, to 45,000 per liter, others condemned the action of the commercial motorbike riders to suspend their routine services to the public, others commended the move by the riders and called on the Government of Sierra Leone to improve monitoring on fuel dealers, clamp down fuel black marketing and to swiftly intervene to bring the suspension to halt through dialogue.
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