Inspector General of Police William Fayia Sellu took to the streets of Clinetown personally on Tuesday, leading a high-visibility clearance operation alongside Director of Traffic Operations Fatmata S. Kamara and other senior officers in what constitutes the latest and most command-level intervention in the Sierra Leone Police’s sustained campaign to restore order to Freetown’s chronically congested road network.
The operation, which extended to other parts of the capital, targeted the obstructions, illegal parking, and encroachments on the public right of way that have made sections of Freetown among the most difficult urban corridors to navigate in West Africa’s secondary cities. Its immediate aim was to restore the free flow of traffic and improve movement for both motorists and pedestrians along affected routes.
The personal presence of the Inspector General Sierra Leone’s most senior police officer at a traffic clearance exercise is a deliberate signal that Monday’s operation was not a routine patrol. It represents an institutional escalation in a campaign that has been building in momentum since the opening weeks of 2026.
Tuesday’s operation at Clinetown is the latest in a series of police-led traffic and public space enforcement exercises that have swept across Freetown and beyond throughout 2026 each one framed within President Julius Maada Bio’s declaration of 2026 as the “Year of Action” and aligned with the Sierra Leone Police’s Strategic Development Plan.
On 6 January 2026, IGP Sellu led the first major enforcement operation of the year, during which the Sierra Leone Police demolished several illegal and makeshift structures across parts of Freetown, targeting structures illegally erected on the Right of Way and beneath the Hill Cut overhead bridge in the Western Area places that police said had obstructed free movement of vehicles, contributed to traffic congestion, and posed safety risks to road users. That January operation also dismantled an illegal settlement under the Hill Cut bridge that authorities described as a centre for drug trade and trafficking, making it simultaneously a traffic and a security intervention.
The enforcement extended beyond the city centre from the outset. The January operation was extended to IMATT, Regent, and areas surrounding the American Embassy, where unregulated timber trading activities had encroached on the Right of Way, causing persistent traffic congestion and exposing pedestrians and motorists to unnecessary danger.
The pattern has continued with striking regularity. In December 2025, the Sierra Leone Police working in partnership with the Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority rolled out a major cleanup and enforcement operation targeting chronic street congestion along the eastern corridor, focused initially on the Kissy bypass before extending to Calaba Town with the Director of Operations, AIG Martin John Senesie, clarifying that the clearance was part of an ongoing enforcement strategy rather than a one-off intervention, and that officers would remain stationed along the corridor to maintain compliance and prevent a resurgence of illegal street occupation.
Most recently, the Sierra Leone Police carried out a coordinated operation along Goderich Street, one of the busiest roads in Freetown, targeting indiscriminate parking and roadside trading that commercial drivers had used to turn sections of the road into informal parking spaces, obstructing both vehicles and pedestrians and creating safety risks that had resulted in several recorded accidents.
As recently as 8 May 2026, the Sierra Leone Police in Magburaka Division intensified patrols and increased police visibility across Magburaka township, cautioning traders against street trading which officers said obstructs the free flow of traffic and creates security and safety concerns within the municipality demonstrating that the enforcement campaign has spread well beyond the capital.
The persistence and frequency of these operations reflect the scale of the underlying problem. Freetown’s traffic crisis is not the product of vehicle volumes alone it is structural, rooted in years of inadequate enforcement of public space regulations, the proliferation of informal commercial activity on road corridors, and a culture of indiscipline that enforcement campaigns have repeatedly interrupted but never permanently reversed.
At several busy junctions in Freetown including Congo Cross, Lumley Roundabout, and Wilkinson Road — vehicles can be seen running red lights, weaving through oncoming traffic, or parking in prohibited areas, creating confusion and congestion. Commercial drivers have noted that traffic officers are rarely present after 8 PM, creating a window of lawlessness that many drivers exploit.
The Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority, the agency responsible for enforcing road safety laws, has struggled with limited resources and personnel. Although it conducts regular traffic campaigns and outreach programmes, the impact has appeared minimal in curbing widespread disregard for road rules.
The involvement of the Inspector General in what might otherwise be considered a mid-level enforcement exercise suggests that command leadership at the SLP has concluded that lower-level interventions are insufficient to produce the sustained behavioural change that Freetown’s roads require. Whether high-visibility operations led from the top of the police hierarchy translate into lasting order or whether the encroachments return, as history repeatedly shows they do, once the cameras and command vehicles have moved on is the question that Freetonians have learned to ask with each new enforcement cycle.
The SLP’s Strategic Development Plan places public safety and traffic management under Goal One the force’s highest institutional priority for the current planning period. The frequency with which senior officers including the IGP himself are now appearing at the front lines of traffic operations suggests a determination to demonstrate that Goal One is being prosecuted at every level, not merely administered from behind desks.
At a similar operation at Jui Junction, the commanding officer explained that the crackdown was prompted by persistent lawlessness and indiscipline, including illegal stalls, kekkeh vendors, and okada riders occupying pedestrian sidewalks and blocking roads and that designated parking zones were established as part of the intervention to ease congestion and improve pedestrian safety. The combination of clearance and designated alternative spaces represents the more durable enforcement model; clearance without alternatives has historically produced only temporary relief.
Tuesday’s operation at Clinetown one of Freetown’s busiest eastern commercial nodes will be assessed not only by how the roads looked on the day but by whether the conditions that produced the congestion are addressed at their root: the traders who have nowhere else to go, the drivers who have nowhere else to park, and the public space governance framework that has never fully resolved the tension between urban economic survival and road order.
