Announcements

Security personnel and local vigilantes have organised a search for Ibrahim Sorie Sillah after he was declared wanted for obstinately refusing to replace his late father as head of the Poro Society, a sacred society that is highly respected in Sierra Leone, especially in the Northern and Western Regions of the country.
Our Northern Region correspondence, Mohamed Fofana, visited Bamoi, an international market town in the Kambia District, Northwest Region, where Ibrahim Sorie Sillah hails from, to investigate the incident.

Since the Poro Society is very sacred and scary, the locals whom our correspondent interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity.

According to some locals, who are members of the Poro Society, following the death of Ibrahim Sorie Sillah's father, Pa Abdulai Sillah, who was head of the Poro Society, on 10th November 2020, his son was immediately contacted by society elders as tradition demands and formally asked him to be prepared to fill the leadership vacuum left by his late father. They also pleaded with him to be initiated into the Poro Society to immediately assume the leadership position of his late father as tradition demands.

Despite the pleas by society elders who approached him, Ibrahim told them crystal clear that his religious beliefs and modernization would not allow him to assume the role of his late father as head of the Poro Society, citing the ungodly practices associated with the society.

Ibrahim’s obstinate stance to not assume the position of his late father was met with serious threat of hostility and death by society members, a senior member of his family claimed, adding that he secretly advised Ibrahim to flee Bamoi to a safer place where he would not be found after he had confided in the young man that there was an evil plan to eliminate him for deliberately refusing to assume the leadership vacuum his late father left, which society members considered as not only an abomination but also a very big slap in the face of their sacred society.

Eyewitness accounts say vigilant society members were monitoring the everyday movement of Ibrahim to ensure that he was forced to join the society and assume the leadership role of his late father, adding that the vigilant society members were however surprised to have learnt that Ibrahim had escaped from Bamoi