AND THE SEARCH GOES ON: WHERE NEXT PLEASE?
It would appear as if every police officer now has a signed search warrant in his wallet and they are at liberty to fill in anybody's name and their other details to search any property at any time. And it also seems as if the main opposition party is now in Munu's sight as the search goes on relentlessly. We are constrained to suggest for the first time that Munu and his men are engaged in an elaborate fishing expedition that is giving this country a bad name - "mutiny" or no mutiny. The way they are going about "investigating" the alleged mutiny or “illegal gathering” is looking suspect, and fear is being systematically planted into a civilian population that is unlikely to accept any further erosion of civil liberties.
Don't be surprised to wake up one morning to find a company of well-armed soldiers and delta police outside your home brandishing a search warrant on your premises. It's that serious.
Look at this: CID officers travel from Freetown to Bo, more than 200 kilometres away to arrest the Mayor of the city for holding an "illegal meeting". They question the man for four hours in a filthy police station and hurriedly release him as young people start to gather in public places when news of their Mayor's arrest starts to spread. The police then invite him to Freetown only for the CID boss to tell his lawyer, he has no idea the Mayor has been invited to Freetown and he should return home in peace.
Within a few days of that incident, the police again forcefully enter the offices of the main opposition party in Makeni (Seat of Power) "in search of arms and ammunition".
Before the SLPP convention, the office and home of Osuofia was searched twice and De Pa ordered MAC-P in Bo for the duration of the conference. Show us any rational human being who will really fail to understand the statement this government is making about their attitude to the existence of a vibrant opposition.
When a power-drunk and clueless government spokesman tells you this is no witch-hunt, we urge you to dismiss him as a bare-faced liar concerned only about his stomach and his air ticket out of Freetown in case of uneasiness resulting from such political intolerance. We have waited too long for this government to explain why the police have been unleashed against the opposition in particular and our democratic aspirations in general.
Many people have been locked up and their families have no idea what's happening to them, homes and offices are being searched without the police finding anything. Yet the phoney searches continue. What is happening to Sierra Leone! We are bold enough to ask and we want answers. We fought for this democracy and cannot sit by and watch it being torpedoed by people who think this country belongs to them alone. NEVER!
Meanwhile, as we promised in the last edition, here are a few more places that we think the police must search alongside SLPP offices, as they "investigate" the so-called mutiny or coup at Teko Barracks
10% OFFICE NEAR SAFECON - PADEMBA ROAD
Well people call this place 10% House because those who operate there are known to be very close to De Pa and the Red Movement and they can help set up meetings with De Pa and make sure business people win lucrative government contracts for a fee of 10% of the contract cost.
They demand their money upfront and can boast on 99.9% success rate. So with all the contracts flying around, including for the supply of cassava leaves to the Pademba Road prisons, you can be sure the guys are swimming in cash.
We wonder why the police or even the ACC are not interested in what goes on in there. They could at least bring charges for influence-peddling and criminal facilitation. What do you think?
A FLAT IN SUNSHINE RESORT - BEACH ROAD, ABERDEEN
There are many nice flats in the place called SUNSHINE located at the Aberdeen creek near the beach. The place gives the impression of everything being hunky-dory in Sierra Leone but looking just across the lagoon, grinding poverty stares you in the face. One of these nice flats is occupied by one of the "greats" of De Pa's Sierra Leone. There are some Russians and people of questionable nationality there. We are not sure but it's likely something illegal is happening there – something of police interest. Why are Munu's boys not searching a place like that?
More places could follow in subsequent issues of TWITTER.
SAINT FRANCIS AND ITS GLORIFIED LORRY PARK
Let somebody please tell us how a lorry park came to be established on Saint Francis secondary school property in Makeni (Seat of Power).
As you enter the main gates to the school look to your left and you will notice a lorry park that is half the size of a football pitch and there are other things happening in some corners of the same place that we found despicable for a school compound of all places. When we visited, we spent some time talking to the people who run the park. They told us incredible tales of how they came to be there. We are waiting for official sources to accept or deny our version of events.
And that so-called Resource Centre – said to be among the country’s best – now covered with tall grass. Let them tell us why a new building called a Resource Centre has been abandoned to snakes. Instead of computers with internet connectivity, books and magazine and also audio-visual materials that are the stuff of real resource centres, we have a snake sanctuary in the making.
We are encouraging cookery sellers to bid for the building. They will do some brisk business there. It makes no sense having a building like that with a high-sounding name that is occupied by snakes when humans don't have a place to make themselves comfortable. All the fanfare and controversy around the building of a resource centre has ended with the place becoming a snake den. Long live the GREAT SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES but...not so sure about the GREAT RESOURCE CENTRE.
IS PATRICK CAMPEBLL NOT A SIERRA LEONEAN?
A man known to US authorities as Patrick Campbell is in jail in America awaiting prosecution for smuggling URANIUM hidden in his shoes to that country. He carries a Sierra Leonean passport but with his arrest, De Pa's government has denied Campbell is a Sierra Leonean. We quote from a government press release on the issue.
Government of Sierra Leone - "The said Patrick Campbell is not a Sierra Leonean, but an apparent common criminal using a false name; There exists no uranium mines in all of Sierra Leone"
Politico – Well we understand he is cooperating with investigators in the US who are eager to discover the extent of his operations in this country and his main contacts.
De Pa's government says Campbell’s journey to prison originated from Nigeria but did he visit Sierra Leone immediately prior to that? Doesn't De Pa think they would have stopped people like us asking all these questions if they had told the people of Sierra Leone when was the last time Campbell visited Sierra Leone and who his main contacts are? Coming off the back of the disgraceful Ibrahim Balde incident, the people are bound to be very cynical.
As to whether URANIUM is mined here or not, let's face it, the people of this country just don't know all the precious minerals mined in this country because the contracts are murky and mercurial. All people talk about are diamond, gold and now iron-ore. So as far as we are concerned, the jury is still out on that. The government's statement about uranium not being mined in Sierra Leone has to be verified by the people.
Selling URANIUM to a country like Iran at this time is a mortal sin for which severe penalties are reserved. Lord may that cup pass by Sierra Leone.
Government of Sierra Leone - "The Sierra Leone passport he was arrested with, was first issued in Sierra Leone in the year 2004, through very dubious means which are now under active investigation.
Government wishes it to be known that it will spare no efforts in the continuing full-scale investigations into the whole matter which is being done in active collaboration with the United States Embassy in Freetown and the Nigerian High Commission in Freetown."
Politico – Even with something as serious as this, De Pa is trying to spin his way out of it. The reference to the passport being issued in 2004 is just an attempt to throw the whole issue back to the days when Tejan Kabbah and his Green Movement were in power. So if you like, it's not us, it's those criminals in Green. This is one of the major weaknesses of De Pa's spin machine – six years after coming to power, they are still referring to acts performed by people they ousted as cover for their own failings. We all know that the life of a Sierra Leonean passport is five years. And De Pa himself knows this when he had an issue with his passport when he was in the opposition. Remember? We don’t forget here at Politico. Hahaha.
Anyway…De Pa was in power when Campbell renewed the same passport that was allegedly originally issued "through very dubious means". So what are we talking about? This government is at the moment prosecuting Abass Bundu for passport issues, it also arrested senior people in the immigration department not too long ago, how come the issue of the Campbells of this world was never raised? Let this government try another trick.
And the issue of "...full-scale investigations into the whole matter which is being done in active collaboration with the United States Embassy in Freetown and the Nigerian High Commission in Freetown", we don't understand what De Pa means by "full scale" investigation. Is there anything like half-scale investigation? This is just another gimmick to create the impression that something is being done. The United States now have their man and we urge De Pa's government to cooperate so that the last puzzles of this jig saw are put in place without delay.
Politico 03/08/13
