POLICEMAN IN THE BLUE CORNER - SHO-SAWYER IN THE RED CORNER
Sho-Sawyer, a Freetown MP should be asking this question now after his memorable encounter with the boys in blue: why should the police in this country run riot and attack ordinary citizens as frequently as they stop taxis on the streets to collect bribes?
We are still digging around an event in which the MP was reportedly attacked by a senior policeman while the MP tried to rescue an ordinary citizen of Mama Salone from some junior police bullies along Campbell Street during one of those pointless recent mask devil parades.
Well, for our dear MP, the chickens are now coming home to roost. We are very angry that a police officer could beat up any ordinary citizen of this country, talk less of an MP and get away with it. But what did parliament do when journalists have always been complaining about police brutality directed against them in their line of duty.
Our so-called Force for Good have attacked and sometimes killed traders, students, mine workers, neighbourhood watch boys and journalists. The MPs who were elected by a collective of all these people stood by and watched. They even supported the police against all those who sent them to parliament. Now the police have come for them and they are isolated.
We understand that when the senior people in the SLP were summoned to parliament on this issue, the police managed to stitch a deal that saved them from the grilling that awaited them in Committee Room Number 1 before the world's media. The MPs who by that time had packed the room left one after the other feeling very disappointed that they were unable to devour their red meat.
We feel sorry for MP Sho-Sawyer. He should have acted as if the police brutality he tried to correct was as common as MP turning their backs on other segments of society who are being brutalised daily by their own police. Next time sir, even if you saw a police officer killing people, simply proceed to Piccadilly entertainment at Campbell Street and enjoy your time. Your own people have let the police off the hook again.
LAVISH 100-YEAR BASH, BUT NO WATER IN PADEMBA ROAD JAIL
Does Bilo Kamara really want us to agree with him on this? Just a few weeks ago, he spent several million leones celebrating 100 years of a prison which did not have water for its inmates. A few weeks later he signs some document authorising an NGO to sink a well for the benefit of the inmates of the same Pademba Road prison. We don't get this at all! Instead of doing his own well so prisoners get water to drink, he spent all that money for a so-called 100-year celebration.
When, at the time we asked whether there was anything to celebrate, the point we were making was that it was totally unwise to spend all that money on food and drinks when all prisoners are given only a litre of water a day.
In fact, look at the uniforms of prison officers serving in the courts of Makeni. We shouldn't even call it uniform because there is hardly any uniformity in what they put on at work. The prison officers work alongside reasonably well-dressed police officers and that lowers their morale very badly.
The bosses in Freetown just can't be bothered. Some of our colleagues who have been remanded in that prison, came back with stories about human misery and many disgruntled workers. But Bilo is going on as if he doesn't know such suffering exists behind those walls. Most of the people in that jail are very, very innocent.
When the authorities decided to by-pass the really competent people and then appointed their own boy into such a post, this is what we get.
ORAL ENGLISH EXAM DUE YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW OR NEVER Hahaha!
Even Sheriff Sapateh has no idea when the Oral English exam will be taken by WASSCE students. May be it's tomorrow, or in the distant future. Nobody knows what's going on. And this is very bad. Sapateh sets a date and the children spend months preparing for the exam, only to arrive at the appropriate examination centre to be told to go home and wait for another day. In fact some got called by their colleagues sometime this week that they had heard rumour the exam would be written. The kids dashed and NO EXAM.
We don't mind talking about the incompetence of Sapateh and WAEC all day, but we probably should ask very serious question about this Oral English exams. We believe that it should be removed without further day.
We call for the scrapping of the Oral English for these reason: it's not part of the reckoning for those wishing to enter University, nor does it add any value to the overall English Language grade. It's only a feel good exam, WAEC just can't get itself together to organise the exam and, we should say the truth here, a large percentage of young school leavers, including those with fantastic grades in Oral English, just can't construct a sentence with all these years of Oral English exams. But what are they taught anyway!!!
The school system must find another way of getting school children to speak English.
FREETOWN DRAINAGE SYSTEM FAILS BADLY WITH FIRST RAINS
We are all witnesses to the complete failure of the city's drainage system as the rainy season announces its arrival in 2014. The whole system is blocked, packed with all kinds of rubbish. And come let's face it, the rubbish is deliberately put there by residents of this city who despite the relatively good work of MASADA, simply can't manage the rubbish they generate in their homes or their places of business. This is something people have been complaining about everyday but the result has always been the same - ignore those journalists and get on with business as usual.
Here's an example: we invite Mayor Bababode and the SLRA people to take a look at the gutter close to the wall of Maroon Church on the Percival street side linking up with Siaka Steven Street. There are more than a dozen people sitting near that wall selling God knows what. It's almost as if everybody in Freetown has something to sell to the other. Why should a place like that be turned into a market?
Bababode and his SLRA friends would find even ash from a local fire place poured into that gutter daily. We have also seen rotten car wheels dumped there. What is happening to Freetown? And it's not difficult to find out who is doing this to this very important part of what we call a modern city. Is Bababode telling us that those few traders can throw him out of office? It's truly shameful.
ATILLA WITHDRAWS IN SHAME BUT DAMAGE DONE ALREADY
Look what we have here: the Washington karaoke deputy minister is desperately trying to find a way out of the mess in which he unnecessarily put himself. Mr. minister, in these days of technology, people like you who go around making unguarded statements about everything under the sun should know you can't hide. We have copies of what you said and if as a consequence of that, something terrible happens in this country, we shall make it available to the ICC. We know, as you boasted that you are "a permanent resident of the United States". But America is no safe haven in matters like this, sir. Charles Taylor's son is serving a 99-year jail term in the US for crimes committed in Liberia. You see that?
The karaoke man has subsequently told 98.1 radio station where he went uninvited to sing his Third Term song and attack and threaten those who are against that nonsense, that his anger was directed at the Green Movement's Musa Tamba Sam because he was "inciting" people to violence by threatening to bring people out to demonstrate against the Third Term nonsense. Well, we don't agree with the tactics of the Green Movement on this and many other issues but we will not allow Karaoke boy to escape with this bogus "incitement" talk.
Look, when buses loaded with hundreds of people carrying placards saying "AFTER U NAR U" appeared at Regent the other day, was that incitement? What about all those red and white AFTER U NAR U flags still hanging around Freetown? Are the people being incited with all that?
De Pa and his Spin Doctors say the people carefully organising those campaigns have a right to do so - they are exercising their FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Good talk. So what is wrong with Musa Tamba Sam organising the counter side to the AFTER U NAR U rubbish? We are simply too intelligent to allow ourselves to be threatened by a karaoke man with a US passport in his wallet.
(C) Politico 08/05/14
