AWE Media Sierra Leone

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson Mohamed Jalloh, National President of the All Political Parties Youth Association (APPYA) is appealing for capacity building of young people and for all Sierra Leoneans to uphold peace and stability for national good. He made his plea to the government of Sierra Leone while reacting to the election and appointment of a few young people as members of parliament and other positions of trust in the national governance of the country. He went on to welcome President Julius Maada Bio’s appointment of a few young people into government ministries, agencies and department, and appealed on behalf of his membership for capacity building schemes such as technical and vocational skills training with emphasizes on information technology to be instituted for young people nationwide, as an urgent recipe to reduce the unemployment rate in the country. “If government urgently design, institute and monitor capacity building schemes for young people nationwide, idleness, jobles...

By: Alusine Rehme Wilson This year’s Super Friends inter-community football tourney held at the Birch Memorial playing field in Makeni didn’t only handed opportunity to over 180 young talents that gifted football fans to watch sprouting soccer prospects but allowed BWB Foundation to seek revenge over rivals Cow-yard in the grand finals. Surprisingly, was the first time fans were excited to pay to watch a grand finale at the said venue where the foundation boys came from behind to equalize late against Cow-yard community in the second half courtesy of forward Abdul S. Bangura sending them straight off to post game penalty shootout where they etched their name with a convincing 4-3 win to clinch the 2023-Super Friend inter-community cup. As champions, BWF Foundation whose win over Cow-yard’s put them level as rivals in all meetings took home a star-prize of NLe 1,000 while Cow-yard community which drew soccer inspiration from one of theirs Bo Rangers and Leone Stars defender Saidu “Mal...

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...