9RiverMedia

Reporting on communities bordering rivers Sierra Leone, Rokel, Moa, Mano, Scarcies, Bankasoka, Sewa, and Sherbro

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

While @MoiceComm lies to #SierraLeone, @abdemata went on @TruthmediaSL to note the urgency of @MalikAzmani's letter.
@FritongPost, you et al in @SLAJ_Salone should speak to more MPs like this at @Europarl_EN as we call
on the mighty @StateDept to do more.
@OCCRP

[Malik Azmani @MalikAzmani]

We kunnen niet accepteren dat veroordeelde criminelen hun straf ontlopen. Daarom heb ik de Europese Commissie gevraagd om meer druk uit te oefenen op Sierra Leone, zodat Jos L. kan worden uitgeleverd.

We zien dat Sierra Leone een steeds belangrijkere schakel wordt in de cocaïnehandel naar Europa. Juist daarom is het onacceptabel dat veroordeelden aan uitlevering kunnen ontkomen. Georganiseerde misdaad ondermijnt onze veiligheid, onze rechtsstaat en onze democratie.

[Malik Azmani @MalikAzmani]

We kunnen niet accepteren dat veroordeelde criminelen hun straf ontlopen. Daarom heb ik de Europese Commissie gevraagd om meer druk uit te oefenen op Sierra Leone, zodat Jos L. kan worden uitgeleverd.

We zien dat Sierra Leone een steeds belangrijkere schakel wordt in de cocaïnehandel naar Europa. Juist daarom is het onacceptabel dat veroordeelden aan uitlevering kunnen ontkomen. Georganiseerde misdaad ondermijnt onze veiligheid, onze rechtsstaat en onze democratie.

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

Thousands of families are on the waiting list for social housing in London. In @lb_southwark, there are 18,000+ households who have applied for a home, including some 4,000 in temporary accommodation. @Ladyfatimabio @GleanerSierraLe
@MichaelBasita @mopkay @SLAJ_Salone
@Fornahib

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

@Ladyfatimabio had lived in the taxpayer-subsidised home for more than a decade, but left in 2018 when her husband, @julius_maadabio was elected president of Sierra Leone.
https://t.co/SxToocaRoF

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

@superrod001 @SLFA_sl ✝️✝️✝️

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

@Ladyfatimabio, once @julius_maadabio became president in 2018, you should've handed the property back to @lb_southwark and found your kids someplace else. The UK isn't SLn where no one holds you guys accountable. @StateDept
@mopkay @MichaelBasita

[Gleaner Newspaper Sierra Leone 🇸🇱 @GleanerSierraLe]

First lady Fatima Bio evicted from Southwark council flat

Southwark Council has evicted Fatima Jabbe-Bio from a London council flat following reports by The Times and OCCRP that she continued to live in a taxpayer-subsidized property despite living in the presidential lodge in Freetown. The action follows a joint investigation published in May 2025 into the first lady's property holdings, which included the purchase of high-end homes in Gambia.
Council housing in the United Kingdom is designed to provide below-market rents to people in genuine housing need, with eligibility typically based on low income and limited savings. The council said it moved to reclaim the flat after the newspaper revealed that Jabbe-Bio kept the Southwark home while her husband was Sierra Leone's president.

In an interview with the BBC, Jabbe-Bio confirmed that she had kept the apartment in London and that her British-citizen children lived there. The former Nollywood actress, who moved to London in the early 2000s and to the Southwark flat in 2007, claims she pays for the property herself and denies any wrongdoing. When her husband became president of Sierra Leone in 2018, she relocated there. Southwark Council did not provide full details of the eviction, but did state that it had acted in response to the investigation's findings. The case has prompted renewed scrutiny of how social housing allocations are monitored, as well as the larger issue of public officials or their family members having access to subsidised housing while living abroad. #SierraLeone

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

@FritongPost, hope you heard Hon. @abdemata interview on @TruthmediaSL
@MoiceComm continues to deny the existence of Jos Leijdekkers, even as @Europarl_EN considers suspending aid and imposing sanctions. @MinPres
@julius_maadabio
@MichaelBasita
@StateDept
@USEmbFreetown

[Truth Media @TruthmediaSL]

Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Hon. Abdul Kargbo explains that the open discussion in the European Parliament about suspending aid to Sierra Leone he spoke about in social media post, was a letter written by a Dutch MP to the EU Parliament.

#TruthTellers
#NaTrueDaeLas

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

@JosefSkrdlik
At least since 2024 small cargo ships have left #SierraLeone or nearby waters, then lingering off Morocco, Canary Islands and the Spanish coast before heading for North African ports.
@sierraeyesalone @MichaelBasita @TheAlima
@mopkay
https://t.co/5SVBsn14Ej

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

The Arconian operation https://t.co/r3d1m1utMg
#SierraLeone @julius_maadabio

[DutchNews.NL @DutchNewsNL]

Bolle Jos network behind record cocaine seizure, report finds https://t.co/PP5gWDPywM

[Saving Africa Uncensored @Fornahib]

At 14, he was fishing for 400 lbs of fish nightly to support his sick father. He encountered a stranger demanding his boat, threatening his family's livelihood. This raw account highlights the pressure and desperation faced by some.
#RealStories #Hardship

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

@ministerjenv told the talk show Buitenhof it was “bizarre” that the Netherlands is still helping to fund a country sheltering one of its most wanted criminals.
#SierraLeone @FritongPost @StateDept
@julius_maadabio @MoiceComm
https://t.co/gX4uKK10pa

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

@FritongPost @Cee_Bah @MalikAzmani @ministerjenv @CeeBah lies just as much as @julius_maadabio They are so poorly-educated they think people who get their information from authoritative sources are as stupid as they are. Only in ##SierraLeone. The most backward country in @ecowas_cedeao

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

If Jesse were alive today, he'll applaud the $480M donation from American taxpayers. Like he once said, "There's [cocaine] on everybody's hands. Nobody is clean." @juliusmaadabio and his goons are like Nelson Mandela’s ANC. Ain't that the truth @MichaelBasita?
@USEmbFreetown

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

If you have an opinion on cultural rites of passage: clitoral vs. vaginal orgasms and the clitoris in vaginal births, then why are you silent on Jos Leijdekkers? Are you benefiting from the narco economy in #SierraLeone?
@TheAlima @mopkay @Ladyfatimabio
@MichaelBasita

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

Your hypocrisy knows no bounds. @USEmbFreetown just celebrated a $480 million pass that American taxpayers gave to #SierraLeone.
@MCCgov has decided Jos Leijdekkers runs your narco state and, they're okay with that. @julius_maadabio

[SIERRAEYESALONE @sierraeyesalone]

Selective Outrage 2.0 - Qatar Was Cancelled, America Is Getting a Pass

In the run-up to the 2022 @FIFAcom World Cup in #Qatar, Western media did not merely criticise. They went to war. Every migrant worker death, every labour-rights abuse, every restriction on free expression and #LGBTQ+ rights was dissected in minute detail. Broadcasters, newspapers and human-rights organisations framed the entire tournament as morally compromised, a stain on the soul of the beautiful game. “Blood on the pitch,” they declared. Boycotts were urged. Sponsors were shamed. The message was unequivocal, no amount of glittering architecture could wash away Qatar’s #humanrights record.

Four years later, the 2026 World Cup is kicking off across the #UnitedStates, #Mexico and #Canada. And the silence from those same quarters is deafening.
What is unfolding inside the United States is not a series of minor bureaucratic hiccups. It is a direct assault on everything the #WorldCup is supposed to represent: the idea that football belongs to the world, that the pitch is the one place where passports and politics are left at the gate.

Consider what has happened in the opening days of the tournament.

Omar Abdulkadir Artan, award-winning Somali referee, Africa’s top official in 2025 and the first Somali ever selected for a men’s World Cup, was denied entry at Miami International Airport despite holding a valid visa. FIFA immediately dropped him from the referee list. A man chosen to uphold the laws of the game was turned away by the immigration laws of one host nation.

The entire Senegal national team delegation was subjected to a humiliating tarmac search upon arrival in San Antonio. Players were ordered to open luggage in full view of cameras and onlookers, shoes removed, belongings turned inside out, sniffer dogs circling, all while standing on a runway. Uzbekistan’s squad received similar treatment. Videos went viral and ignited outrage across Africa and Central Asia. These were not suspects. They were athletes, invited guests of a World Cup host nation.

African supporters from countries caught in the Trump administration’s travel restrictions continue to face visa delays and unexplained denials, even after the punishing $15,000 visa-bond requirement was partially waived. Ghanaian supporters, Senegalese families, fans who saved for years to witness their teams on the world stage are being told, you may watch from afar. Your money is welcome. Your presence is not.

None of this is happening in Mexico or Canada. It is happening in the United States of America.

And the crowning irony? @FIFAPresident Gianni Infantino personally awarded Donald Trump the inaugural “FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World” in December 2025 during the tournament draw in Washington. Infantino praised him for “making peace and making the world prosper” and handed over a gleaming trophy as cameras rolled. Now we see what that peace looks like: a Somali referee turned away at the border, African players treated as security threats on the tarmac, fans excluded because of their nationality. Football Unites the World? Only if your passport is the right colour.

The double standard is grotesque. When Qatar built its stadiums using migrant labour under conditions that cost workers their lives, the Western press screamed. Rightly so. When the United States deploys its immigration apparatus to filter who may participate in a tournament on its soil, those same voices go quiet. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have warned about the climate of fear enveloping this World Cup. The mainstream Western narrative has largely moved on to the fixtures.

This is not about deflecting from Qatar’s abuses. Qatar’s record deserved every line of scrutiny it received. The point is simpler and more damning, if human rights are genuine principles, they cannot be applied selectively. They cannot be reserved for states the West finds convenient to condemn and quietly suspended when the host is a Western ally.

FIFA’s bidding process for 2026 included explicit human rights commitments. The organisation’s rhetoric holds that football is for everyone. Yet its president’s warm embrace of the very administration enforcing these exclusions suggests that rhetoric is, at best, hollow.

For the wider African continent, this is not abstract. Our players, our officials and our fans are among those bearing the brunt. We have watched with pride as African football has grown in stature and global respect. We watch now with anger as that respect is casually undermined at an American airport.

The World Cup is the planet’s shared festival, perhaps the only event that genuinely crosses every boundary of language, culture, religion and race. When referees, players and fans are humiliated or excluded because of where they were born, the tournament is diminished. Every match played under that shadow carries the weight of who was not permitted to be there.

As the 2026 finals unfold, the question must be asked without apology, if human rights and dignity mattered so much in #Doha, why do they matter so little in #Miami, #Atlanta and #LosAngeles?

Football unites the world, or at least it should. Right now, in the United States, it is being used to divide it. And the world is watching.

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

@julius_maadabio has ceded #SierraLeone's sovereignty, military, and institutions to Leijdekkers. Bio's drug dealer holds such vast wealth in the most backward state of @ecowas_cedeao that he dictates how @USEmbFreetown conducts trade.
@EUinSierraLeone
@FCDOGovUK

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

#SierraLeone is now a significant hub in the drugs trade. Why are American taxpayers helping to fund a country sheltering one of Europe's most wanted drug lords?
@ministerjenv
@MinPres
@StateDept
@DEAHQ
@OCCRP
@INrestore2023
@hafiesorie
@Fornahib

[U.S. Embassy Freetown @USEmbFreetown]

A brighter energy future for Sierra Leone is right around the corner!
We celebrated the United States’ 250th birthday with a special reception at the new Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) Sierra Leone office in Freetown on Thursday, May 21.

In partnership with the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the Embassy brought together government leaders, diplomats, and energy-sector experts ahead of the implementation of the $480M MCC Compact project designed to revolutionize the country’s power grid. Power means progress - and a future of affordable, reliable energy in Sierra Leone.

As CDA Yancey said, “Together, we are tackling the energy constraints that hold back economic growth, paving the way for a more prosperous Sierra Leone.”

#SierraLeone #Freedom250

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

Dutch government pushes European Union to cut #SierraLeone aid over drug smuggling.
https://t.co/zVpTqQzZW0
@MichaelBasita @mopkay

[9RiverMedia @9rivermedia2]

@ministerjenv said he estimated that Leijdekkers earns “hundreds of millions of euros” a month – more, than #SierraLeone's annual national income. The @Europarl_EN has allocated €352 million in grants to Sierra Leone for 2021 to 2027.
https://t.co/eC5MipRQAn