Meet Mr. Victor Bockarie Foh today, who once upon a time hoped to see the daylight like any free citizen.
As he is in a position that only the wonderful God up there can give answers to the miraculous wonder, Mr. Foh in the meantime, take us to his past life with his new memoir 'Death Row: Testimony of Survival by a Christian Journalist'.
The below article is courtesy Sierra Leone 365. Read on..
Victor Bockarie Foh, a central character in the constitutional crisis currently fragmenting Sierra Leone was also a major protagonist in another political crisis that is recounted in Sierra Leone: The Fighter from Death Row: Testimony of Survival by a Christian Journalist, a book by former BBC broadcaster Hilton Ebenezer Fyle.
But as Sierra Leone's newly appointed vice president, Foh finds himself in circumstances drastically different from those of August 1998 when, along with Fyle and fourteen others, he was tried for treason and sentenced to death.
Foh's route to Death Row and role in Fyle's memoirs began on May 25, 1997 when the government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabba was overthrown by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). International condemnation of the coup d'état and popular opposition at home earned the AFRC a spot in the record books as the only government in the world never to win recognition from any country.
As the first accused in a trial that included charges of treason, abetting treason, and conspiracy, Foh is a recurring character in Fyle's personal account of life as a political prisoner in Sierra Leone's unjust judicial system. Fyle writes that after the coup, Foh became such a trusted member of the AFRC that he was included in a delegation that represented the junta at the October 1997 Conakry peace talks with the Kabba administration when junta leader Johnny Paul Koroma declined to attend for security reasons.
And as a trusted member of the AFRC junta, Foh took his duties seriously. Fyle specifically recounts an encounter he witnessed between Foh, then the newly appointed SIERRATEL executive chairman and some lower level managers. A furious Foh was concerned that the country's economy was being damaged by the illegal withdrawal of huge sums of money from SIERRATEL coffers. The SIERRATEL managers, defying Foh's authority over them, argued that the articles governing the company called for a non-executive of the board, not an executive chairman. Foh showed Fyle some SIERRATEL bank statements indicating that up to $8 million had been fraudulently withdrawn from the company's accounts anyway.
Described by Fyle as an expert in the Constitution of Sierra Leone, it was Foh's interpretation of that document that almost cost him his life in 1998. At his trial for treason, the case against Foh was built around media interviews in which he appeared to justify the AFRC coup while denouncing the Kabba administration for violations of the Constitution of Sierra Leone.
As he moves into the vice president's mansion, Foh will undoubtedly never forget his difficult experiences at Pademba Road Prison's Blyden House, Wilberforce House and Death Row that are so well recounted in Fyle's The fighter from Death Row. He will remember the pact with cellmates Fyle and Dennis Smith not to empty their bowels at night in the bucket that served as a toilet. He will not forget the humiliation of being booed and stoned by angry crowds when he and his co-defendants appeared at the Law Courts. Foh will remember his gallows humor when he suggested that penises be called "microphones" as 50 to 60 men naked men lined up to take baths at Pademba Road Prisons. And of course he won't forget how deep corruption is entrenched in Sierra Leone because of the Le500 bribe every prisoner was forced to contribute to a prison officer in order to avoid being locked in during the Christmas and New Year Holidays in 1998.
But Foh is not the only actor in The fighter from Death Row with a major part in Sierra Leone's current constitutional crisis. Edmond Cowan, the judge who said "Victor Bockarie Foh, I sentence you to death. You will be taken to a place of maximum security where you will be hanged by your neck until you die. May the Lord have mercy on you," is now chairman of the Sierra Leone's Constitutional Review Committee. Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, a former newspaper editor and co-defendant of Foh's, is now a senior adviser to President Koroma who tried to mediate between the All People's Congress Party and dismissed Vice President Sam Sumana. Solomon Berewa, a former attorney-general and vice president viewed by Fyle as the main puppet master behind the scheme to railroad the treason trial defendants, also tried to mediate between the government and Vice President Sumana.
In Sierra Leone, January 6, 1999 is remembered as the day the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) invasion of Freetown led to the killing or maiming of thousands of innocent civilians. January 6, 1999 was also the day V. B. Foh, a future vice presidential appointee was freed from Pademba Road Prisons.
The constitutionality of Foh's vice presidential appointment now has to be decided by the same judicial system that once condemned him to die.
Photo Sierra Leone 365
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