A QUIET BIRTHDAY FOR DE PA, BUT NEXT YEAR SHOULD BE OK
Let's congratulate De Pa on his 61st birthday. We wish him long life and the Wisdom of Solomon to run this country with all the serious problems facing us now. Long Live De Pa!
We understand the event itself was a very low key affair. Well, it couldn't have been anything else with Ebola claiming the lives of many Sierra Leoneans daily. Any big celebration would have sent the wrong signal to a very traumatised nation. Many groups of people are very disappointed though, that Ebola prevented them from warming the house this year on De Pa's birthday. Here are some other reasons why different groups of people are already looking forward to next year's birthday celebration.
1. Cabinet Ministers - They lost the opportunity to demonstrate how much they love De Pa by presenting him with wonderful gifts and making long and boring speeches praising him. After seven years, we believe De Pa knows the ministers who are genuine. In fact some of them have Ebola to thank for their continued stay in the cabinet. It's the safest bet in the world to say more than half of the present ministers will be out of office by De Pa's next birthday.
2. Journalists - De Pa must have noticed that only very few organisations sent birthday greetings using newspapers. That is normally a source of good income for newspapers as all parastatals and business people looking for lucrative government contracts fall over themselves to wish De Pa a happy birthday.
3. Youth Man Dem - They are normally guaranteed a good meal and some cash from a generous De Pa.
We don't work for the Center for Disease Control or one of the organisations making those frightening predictions about possible Ebola infections in West Africa but we are quite sure that by this time next year, Ebola in Sierra Leone would only be on the history books. The nation will then join De Pa for a great birthday celebration. We can't wait.
SALONE FOOTBALL IN CHAOS: TWO SETS OF COACHES; TWO SETS OF MANAGERS
Running that national football team, Leone Stars, is now the biggest joke in the country. We don't know why Sara De Great hasn't picked up on the farce called football administration to make some good cash. Imagine this scene: Minister Pope John Paul calls a meeting at his office with the SLFA. After the meeting, the ministry announces that they have agreed to appoint Ghanaian-born Atto Mensah as coach of the national team with John Sama serving as his assistant.
Next day, the SLFA pours cold water on the deal, questioning the qualification of the Pope's coaches. With only a few days to the crucial CAF qualifier away in Cameroon, the SLFA appointed its own coaches as a direct challenge to the Pope. They appointed John Ajina Sesay and Abdulai Kaloga as coaches. So two sets of coaches and team managers are now on their way to Yaoundé to take charge of the same team - fantastic plot for a Sara De Great kind of film. Who will the Cameroonians deal with?
If the authorities do not take a very strong and decisive action to end the devastating turf war between the ministry of sports and the SLFA, we can as well say goodbye to Sierra Leone football and concentrate on the English Premier League.
When the last SLFA congress was blatantly rigged in favour of the ministry's candidate, we predicted that the marriage wouldn't last and the minister would one day come for his own portion of the spoils of war which in this case was TOTAL CONTROL OF THE NATIONAL TEAM.
Just over a year into a four-year mandate, the Pope has turned up for what he was promised and the SLFA would have us believe there was no deal. In the newspaper business, we say WATCH THIS SPACE. People must learn the harsh realities of the uncertainties of being a King Maker from this episode.
HISTORY MADE IN SIERRA LEONE: NO MASK DEVIL PARADE ON PRAY DAY
The feast of Eid Ul Ahada passed off this year with no mask devil parades all over the country. So who says we really can't do without mask devils on our streets, because “it's part of our culture?” We believe the definition of culture is being stretched beyond limits to accommodate mask devil activities in Sierra Leone.
We definitely hate Ebola and we pray that before long we shall end the menace but the fact that it has forced mask devils off the streets for the first time in many, many years, is a good thing. We are fed-up with mask devils because it's no longer what it used to be. Mask devil parades now provide a field day for broad daylight armed robbery on our streets. Ordinary citizens are distressed on the streets under the noses of the police who, in the face of such large and potentially violent crowds, do very little.
During mask devil parades, open gang warfare ensues and despite the cries of the people against a perversion of what could actually be a good day out for stressed Sierra Leoneans, things have not changed one bit. We now have an opportunity to end the rubbish once and for all - no more Mask Devils in good old Sierra Leone.
CAN WE PLEASE STOP CARRY-FORWARD HOLIDAYS IN SALONE NOW?
There's a lot of disquiet around in this country about what we call carry-forward holidays. Here's the most recent example: The Eid holiday fell on a Saturday so the authorities decided to declare Monday a holiday because Saturday is normally not a working day.
In the same way if this was Christmas, the authorities would have done the same. No disrespect to any of the main religions in Sierra Leone, far from that but the reality of the situation is that we really can't afford too many holidays in this country. Sierra Leone is a country in a hurry so we must stop taking too many holidays. Look at what Ebola has done to our economy. Politicians will not accept this but we have gone more than 10 years behind in our economic re-building process following the war.
There's a lot of work to do in this country. We don't know of any other country where carry-forward holidays are used so widely. If we have bold economists in this country, we challenge them to calculate how much money we lose every now and then to all those plenty holidays in April alone every year; forget about the period between December 15 and January 5. Please let’s work, work and work. A former president once said that while other countries can afford to walk, Sierra Leone must run. That's very true.
(C) Politico 07/10/14
