AWE Media Sierra Leone

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson Public places including market places, night clubs and some strategic meeting points on main streets in the Northeastern regional headquarters Makeni were for the first time all empty on Tuesday between the hours of 4-10pm local time. The emptiness some residents have told Awoko Newspaper is as a result of the announcement of the final presidential election results on the day that confirmed incumbent Julius Maada Bio, presidential candidate of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) as the president elect with a record votes total of 1,566,932 equalling 56.17% of the total votes cast. The result saw Mr. Bio being declared winner of the historic polls by the Returning Officer and Chief Electoral Commissioner of the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) Mohamed Kenewui Konneh, because of the total number of votes casted across the 11,712 polling stations nationwide on Saturday in his favour had surpassed the 55% constitutionally required percentage requir...

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson 29 years old Isatu Kanu, a mother of two, says voting on Saturday, June 24 for the first time in the general elections of her country was “bitter-sweet.” Kanu who whose current age makes her eligible to would have first voted since 2012 said she could not exercise her franchise although eligible to vote in her nation’s last two general elections because of pregnancy and hunted by fatigue to show up at registration centres for the successive voter registrations. Thankfully, when the voter registration started for the June 24, 2023 election I was not pregnant this time, I was excited and had to show up early at the registration centre in my area and registered then showed up also for the verification and as early as 6:45am on Saturday, I had already joined other eligible voters at the Baptist primary school, Lady’s Mile, Makeni in readiness to vote, but my experience here today is a memorable one, Kanu explained. “Although I arrived early at the centre to vote ...

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson Yesterday, June 24, during the voting in Makeni city, hundreds of eligible voters queued to vote across their respective centers but Sinnah Koroma and her 8-month-old child were spotted by AWE-Media.SL queuing for over three hours before she voted. Moved by her courage to wait that long on the queue together with her child, I waited patiently after she had successfully casted her vote at the Church of God, Makeni polling center 4190 and approached her for an interview about what kept her strong while queuing anxiously with her child waiting to vote, among other things. In her response, Koroma, 41 said spending hours at the center which is the largest in Bombali district comprising 8 polling stations never borders her. “While I was in the queue waiting to vote I was praying silently to God for my preferred candidates to emerge victorious, so I didn’t even noticed I had stood longer in the queue because I was also excited to take part in the 5th general electi...

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson Covering the crucial match day-5 TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations encounter between Sierra Leone and Nigeria at the host’s new found home venue SKD Stadium in Monrovia, my camera lenses spotted a somewhat empty stadium. Except for the presidential stand and a few cover stands that were encouragingly occupied, all the other stands in the stadium were either relatively empty and a few had a countable size of spectators. It was the many empty stands at the stadium that motivated me to interview some fans of the host nation, Sierra Leone - a country believed to be playing its home games previously in front of thousands of supporters at the Siaka Steven Stadium in Freetown, about what it means playing away from home? Lamin Sheriff, who said he was visiting Monrovia for the first time, said he was there from Kenema where he had lived for 34 years since he was born said supporting Leone Stars in the last three years has help him “to travel to different places o...

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson Yesterday, hundreds of cars, motorbikes and residents of some places in the Northern city of Makeni tasted the effect of unrestricted littering of wastes disposal, cutting down of trees and related environmental degradation practices. Along the main Mabanta-Lunsar road, Magburaka-Kamal Streets Junction, lower banana street, Lady’s mile to name but a few like residents of some houses in the areas spent hours bailing out water from their rooms, cars, motorbikes and pedestrians similarly floated and sunk on roads and streets where a Tuesday 5 hours long down pouring of rain gave birth to a flash flood. It’s the first time environmental degradation is fighting back since heavy rainfall, storm and flooding destroyed houses in Makeni municipality and its environs in the early morning hours of Tuesday, June 28, 2022 that ignited some responses from a few community based organisations, as well as cosmetic risk prevention cleaning of streets and irrigation of canals...

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson Even though his nation’s 2023-TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nation in Cote D’Ivoire was shattered by their Nigerian on Sunday, Leone Stars and Bo Rangers forward Musa Noah “Tombo” remains by far the most popular player from his nation. Kamara who’s soon to clock 23 on August 6 this year became the fans center of attraction at the SKD-Stadium in Monrovia when he replaced Mustapha Bundu during Sierra Leone’s must-win AFCON 2023 qualifier match against Nigeria despite his side bowing 3-2 to the visitors. Liberians, Nigerians among other spectators including President George Weah, a former Lone Star skipper and World Best Player enjoined Sierra Leoneans to cheer up the 22-year-old talismanic goal-machine. As if that was not enough, fans led by a teenager identified as one of the admirers of Musa “Tombo” jumped over the perimeter fence and hugged the player for photographs. From different angles in the stadium fans were shouting the football’s name in anticipation...

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson Sierra Leone, one of Africa’s Football loving nations whose supporters dearly anticipated making it to the finals of the 2023-TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations tournament proper in Cote D’Ivoire qualification hopes ended on Sunday evening at the SKD Stadium in Monrovia. Despite putting out what is believed to be a good show against their Group-A opponents (Super Eagles of Nigeria) whose in-form forward Victor Osimhen took advantage of John Keister’s disorganized back-four twice to have a brace to his name before the first quarter hour mark. In the last five minutes to the end of the first half Sierra Leone’s forward Mustapha Bundu renewed hopes for this side as he pulled once back to make it 2-1 in favour of the visitors from Nigeria. Returning from their dressing rooms, Sierra Leone’s coach John Edward Keister introduced some fresh legs when he substituted Mustapha Bundu for Musa Noah “Tombo” Kamara and Saidu Fofanah for skipper Steven Caulker, a move t...

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson While others are busy striving for strict adherences of their constitutional provisions mainly, for delegates to elect regional Executive Committee-(EXCO) members, those in the Northeast Region Football Association-(NERFA) had unanimously chewed the peace-pipe to endorse their FA’s boss and his vice. To arrive at the decision to ignore election over selection of their top two regional football federation officials, six chairpersons and their secretary generals from Tonkolili, Bombali and Koinadugu who were a few days ago elected unopposed by member of the football families have agreed at a meeting held at their secretariat in Makeni together with 3 NERFA incumbent officials, endorsed Brima Jalloh and Abdul Pascal Gbla as Chairperson and vice of the regional football governing body. Their Monday afternoon endorsement means, Brima Jalloh as the incumbent Chairperson of the North East Region Football Association together with his vice Abdul Pascal Gbla who’s als...

​ By: Ibrahim Benjamin Brima Kanu brimakhan@gmail.com Sierra Leone Association of Journalist in partnership with Intedr-Religious Council, IRN, IMC and Irish-Aid has ended one day training for female journalist across the North-Eastern region on safety and security reporting during the forthcoming June 24, 2023 multi-tier election in Sierra Leone. The training was held on Saturday 10th June, 2023 at Where Else guests house in the Makeni-Kabala highway and was attended by many female journalists from various merdia institutions across the region. Giving the background of the training, Sahr James Banga, the vice president of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalist outlined some of the many problems that journalists especially female journalists normally encounter in election reporting which made the association deemed it fit to provide training of this nature for female journalists across the country with the aim of expanding the democratic space through media capacity, enhancement in...

By: Hawa Dauda Dakar, June 8, 2023: At  the Stade Military Liberte VI in Senegal, Star  Sports Academy entered the match with high spirits and determination to make sure they got the needed results and expose their talents playing against Espoirs Qwye a well-exposed and composed 1st Division team partnering with St Etienne in France. Espoir De Qwye has played in the Senegal Division One Championship and won the Senegalese FA Cup and were not easy opponents for the Star Sport Academy boys to knock out. They recorded their first goal against Star Sport Academy after ten minutes of play and maintained their one goal until the end of the first half. After the recess, Star Sports Academy took the game to another level which helped them secure their equalizer through striker, Osman Mansaray who clinched the ball from the inside the half of Espoirs De Qwye dribbled it to six yards and netted the ball. The game continued with intense actions from both sides and five minutes later Star...

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson 30 years ago when the famous Dabor family of lower Bamabara chiefdom in the eastern regional district of Kenema welcomed their last born (Alie Dabor), no one knew he was going to spend all his days in the northeastern city of Makeni and braking barriers. The last born from the family of 5 had since settled, and recently made history when he was awarded the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) ticket as the fittest candidate to contest for the prestigious Bombali District Council Chairmanship in the June 24 polls, becoming the youngest candidate across all political parties to race for such top seat.  Dabor who clocked 30 a few months ago, main contender in the June 24 elections is APC’s Dr. Mohamed Mark Barbah Sisay, but he says he has “no fears” racing with him. I drew my inspiration while growing up and schooling in Bombali and Kenema district which let me see the need to always step up for my peers,” he disclosed. And wen on to say “My bid to become...

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson Although calm is gradually returning to the Ernest Bai Koroma University of Science and Technology (EBKUST) Makeni Campus after hundreds of students went on the rampage on May 30, demanding that “no student must be barred from writing to their examination,” 13 students remain hospitalized. The strike action was ignited by the university administration stands that students must pay  their complete tuition fees including other charges before writing to their final examination, a notion which the university’s Vice Chancellor and Principal Professor Edwin J.J Momoh say is a best practice and a general policy that cut across universities in Sierra Leone, but the students say most of them have paid at least 75% of their fees but they have not received their university attires while the those in the nursing department are  yet to receive their accreditations and uniforms likewise. There was complete standoff on campus and some of the Lecturers had to run for ...

By: Ibrahim Benjamin Brima Kanu brimakhan@gmail.com Ahead of their tour to Senegal, Star Sport Foootball Academy Sierra Leone has on Monday 5th June, 2023 held a press conference at SLAJ regional office at station road Makeni. The conference was atternded by journalists from various media institutions  across the country to help diseminate the plans The team departed the shores of Sierra Leone on the eve of Tuesday 6th June, 2023 with 15 officials and 21 players including 8 players from Sierra Leone National U15 and U17 for the E11 Youth tournament in Senegal and are expected to face off teams from Guinea, Mali  and tSenegal the host nation with the motive of showcasing the boys to international football. The Academy is established to discover talents from various communities accross the country. There are over 30 players altogether in the academy  under all football guiding principles  The boys were recruited from across the country based on their talents devoid of ...