13/10/2025
Sierra Leone's Maada Bio Pays Foreign Agents to Harass Citizens and Mislead International Leaders
By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, PhD
Prunedge Ltd, a Nigerian-owned company, was incorporated in the United Kingdom as a private limited company on April 28, 2021. Its registration number is 13362244, and Joel Ogunsola Toluwani serves as the registered director of the company. He is a Nigerian national reportedly born in 1994.
On July 15, 2025, the UK Registrar of Companies issued a notice informing Prunedge that, unless "cause is shown to the contrary," the company would be struck off the register and dissolved within two months. The notice further stated that upon the company's dissolution, all property and rights vested in or held in trust for the company would be deemed bona vacantia and belong to the Crown.
Corporate records in the United Kingdom indicate that Prunedge has primarily been a dormant company since its incorporation in 2021 and was officially dissolved by the UK Registrar of Companies on September 30, 2025.
In contrast, a new investigation by Africanist Press has revealed that in Sierra Leone, Prunedge is one of several foreign agents contracted by President Maada Bio’s regime to coordinate both domestic and international communications and propaganda campaigns on behalf of the government within the United States and abroad. The findings also indicate that the Bio regime is misusing public funds for international repression and ineffective propaganda efforts aimed at obscuring its economic failures and human rights violations. An email submitted to the United States Department of Justice reveals that the Bio regime instructed one of its foreign agents, Weintraub Communications LLC, operated by Jeffrey R. Weintraub, to coordinate operations in the United States with Joel Ogunsola and the team at Prunedge. In the email, which originated from the Information Ministry, Bio's Minister of Information requested that Jeffrey Weintraub review the terms of a contract signed in September 2024. The initial details of this contract involve both covert operations and "overt opportunities in innovation and technology."
"I am copying our partner at Prunedge, who will directly engage with you on the contract and logistics," wrote Bio's Minister of Information on August 7, 2024. He added, "I look forward to the revised brief, and Joel's excellent team will facilitate the contract immediately."
Weintraub was tasked with collaborating with Joel Ogunsola, who established a branch of Prunedge in Sierra Leone, incorporated as Prunedge SL Limited. According to the agreement, Weintraub is expected to advise the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) representatives on the U.S. media landscape and identify opportunities and challenges in communicating Sierra Leone's activities, policies, and leadership. The agreement stipulates that Weintraub will "solicit and coordinate leading U.S. journalists" to publish opinion pieces and conduct interviews with GoSL leaders, as well as arrange speaking opportunities for GoSL representatives at relevant U.S. organizations, forums, and stakeholder events.
In the correspondence dated August 7, 2024, the Minister of Information stated that the goal is to "make a big splash" by demonstrating an "appetite and willingness to embrace and leverage innovation" as a foundation for Sierra Leone's development. The minister emphasized the importance of portraying the president and himself as champions of this initiative in the media and at events.
While foreign agent registration documents indicate that Weintraub was allegedly hired in August 2024, evidence gathered by Africanist Press suggests that his involvement in the Bio regime's transnational campaigns dates back to at least April 2021, coinciding with the incorporation of Prunedge in the UK. This period also marks when the Bio regime contracted former U.S. Green Beret Jerry Torres and the Mercury Firm to initiate an international cybersecurity operation targeting the regime's democratic critics in the United States, raising concerns about potential violations of U.S. foreign agent registration rules.
In Sierra Leone, the engagement of foreign agents to coordinate and implement the Bio regime's transnational repression and propaganda campaigns remains largely secret. The contracts for these agents have not been made public nor subjected to the required tendering processes mandated by Sierra Leone’s procurement laws and regulations.
Beyond the legal and human rights violations arising from such secret arrangements, the clandestine involvement of U.S.-based Nigerians and other foreign agents in the Bio regime's transnational repression and propaganda campaigns presents a significant risk of fostering anti-U.S. sentiments in Sierra Leone and among Sierra Leoneans living in the diaspora. This is particularly concerning given that the corruption and human rights violations of the Bio regime adversely impact the lives of most ordinary citizens.
Stay tuned for our upcoming report on the role of foreign agents, primarily from Nigeria and U.S. contractors, in the Bio regime's repression and propaganda efforts.
