ECOWAS Citizens Alarm Over ‘Hash Treatment’

ECOWAS Parliament Speaker along With Citizens

By Jackson C. Clay, Jr.

Citizens of the Economic Community of West African (ECOWAS) States have alarmed over what they consider as ‘harsh treatment’ against them by their own security.

Speaking recently at the border between Liberia and Sierra Leone when a 35-man delegation from the ECOWAS parliament including its Speaker, Mustapha Cisse Lo, some citizens of ECOWAS from the two countries told the delegation about an alleged harassment and maltreatment being minted against them by security personnel of the two countries at the border.

Speaking on behalf of the women from the Sierra Leonean side of the border, Elizabeth Sheriff told the delegation that they find it very difficult in moving from one ECOWAS country to another, because according to her, there are too much high restrictions and high cost in the fees of documents.

“ECOWAS is talking about free movement but we as ECOWAS citizens are not free here because the security officers here are not allowing us to freely move.  We the women here are really suffering here they do not recognize even our voter ID cards and we the business women find it very difficult in moving our goods as citizens so we want the parliament to address this situation,” Madam Sheriff told the delegation.

For his part, Haji Jalaba, commissioner at Bo-waterside, Grand Cape Mount County said the people of Grand Cape Mount County are facing so many challenges and paramount amongst them are the issues of security and electricity.

He stated that the presence of security in the county particularly Bo-Waterside is very low, something he thinks needs urgent remedy so as to reduce the high rate of crimes in the area.

“One of our challenges in Tewor district, Grand Cape Mount County is the issue of security. Tewor district, Grand Cape Mount County is lack of manpower in terms of security. We have only two uniform police in Tewor district, three uniform police in Robertsports and one uniform police in Gola Konneh,” he said.

At the same time, the citizens are also pushing for the region to use single currency so as to alleviate economic hardship when moving from ECOWAS country to another on them and for proper control system

Meanwhile, the parliament speaker, Cisse Lo said this was the reason for their visit and vowed to ensure that these concerns raised by the people are properly handle.

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