Network towers are vital for a locality’s communication by providing reliable voice and data services, supporting
emergency communications and enabling modern digital life. They transmit and receive radio signals for mobile phones, allowing users to make calls, send texts, and access the internet whilst also forming the backbone for other services like broadcast radio and TV signals. After hosting Orange Sierra Leone in his Rogbaneh Road residence for almost 20 years, Pa Yusifu Turay, an indigene of Mabum village, in the Kholifa Rowala Chiefdom, Tonkolili District has succeeded in convincing his tenant, Orange-SL to erect a network tower in his hometown of Mabum. Pa Yusifu Turay owns the house hosting Orange Northern Province headquarters in Makeni.
As communication is very vital in the socioeconomic development of any community, the people of Mabum, have been grappling with an erratic and epileptic network system since the advent of mobile phones in Sierra Leone. The lack of a steady network has caused untold suffering to the people of Mabum town and many in the town have missed opportunities as a result.
Pa Yusifu Turay, a renown business man dealing in diamond and gold, resident in Makeni, is very passionate about the development of his home and he promised his people years back that, he will make sure Orange Sierra Leone expands their network to Mabum town to cushion the communication constraints of the people. Pa Yusifu Turay believes in the development concept of “don’t take the people out of the slum, but take the slum out of the people” and that is what he is doing for the people of Mabum. In September 2025, that dream finally actualized when officials from Orange Network in Makeni stormed Mabum town to do feasibility studies and to assess the commercial viability of erecting a network town in the town.
Mabum has a population of about 2,000 people and about 1,500 mobile phone users . The population of the town further encouraged Orange Sierra Leone to erect the network tower.
The Conteh family, a prominent land owning family in Mabum, with no bottlenecks donated the land for the construction of the tower amidst a jubilant and celebratory mood.
The name of Pa Yusifu Turay has gone down the annals of history of Mabum and Tonkolili District as a whole as he has also facilitated the erection of another network tower in a village called ‘Bole Junction’, along the Magburaka-Kono Highway in the Tonkolili District. The network tower is not the first development Pa Yusifu Turay has taken to his people. He has taken a lot of developments to Mabum and he is now a household in the township. He is regarded as the champion of the transformation of Mabum town.
Network towers expand the reach of cellular networks, which is particularly important for keeping remote areas connected to the rest of the world.
The people of Mabum town believe the Orange network tower will bring more developments to the township as Internet connectivity is crucial to many developmental activities. The people of Mabum, Mabum Station, Makombor, Makori Kabia, Magbass, Masorria, Mamaikonko, Mamuna, Mayatha, Robinki and Mayosor will all enjoy the network after the project would have been completed.
By Ibrahim Alieu Kanu
