The Vice-President of Sierra Leone Samuel Sam-Sumana\u00a0has sought political asylum from the United States embassy after soldiers reportedly circled his residence.<\/p>\n
Mr. Sam-Sumana, who confirmed the news to the BBC, fled with his wife to the embassy, although it is yet to be determined whether the pair are inside.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”UrlO4m8HclQxUU2aDBJiR3cuwojcPVSI”]The developments come a week after Sam-Sumana was expelled from the ruling party, the All People’s Congress \u00a0and hust a fortnight after he put himself in quarantine following the death of one of his bodyguards from the Ebola virus.<\/p>\n
The decision to expel the Vice President was made after a meeting of the party’s National Advisory Council, according to the national broadcaster, the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation.<\/p>\n
Sam-Sumana was accused of “orchestrating political violence” and trying to form a new party in his home district of Kono.<\/p>\n
He was also accused of falsifying his academic credentials.<\/p>\n
He has since rejected the claims, describing them as “baseless fabrications and lies” – and rejected calls for his resignation.<\/p>\n
Police and army sources confirmed to the BBC that troops were sent to the vice-president’s residence on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
They said the troops were dispatched to withdraw Mr Sam-Sumana’s security detail, but would not say whose orders they were acting on.<\/p>\n
Sam-Sumana\u00a0told the AP news agency by phone that he didn’t “feel safe this morning as vice-president” and revealed that he had\u00a0spoken to US Ambassador John Hoover and was waiting for a response.<\/p>\n
US embassy spokeswoman Hollyn Green said embassy officials, including Mr Hoover, had “seen the news” but could not provide any reaction.<\/p>\n
“There is no comment at the moment and there is no action on our part,” Ms Green told AP.<\/p>\n
Under Sierra Leone’s constitution the Vice-President cannot be sacked.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By: Edwin Kwakofi\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Vice-President of Sierra Leone Samuel Sam-Sumana\u00a0has sought political asylum from the United States embassy after soldiers reportedly circled his residence. Mr. Sam-Sumana, who confirmed the news to the BBC, fled with his wife to the embassy, although it is yet to be determined whether the pair are inside. [contextly_sidebar id=”UrlO4m8HclQxUU2aDBJiR3cuwojcPVSI”]The developments come a week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":99444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-99443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}