BREAKING TWEET: THORPE PREACHES TRIBALISM ON DEPARTURE
You would imagine that on the eve of her departure as head of the National Electoral Commission, the SISTER OF CLOONEY would leave in a peaceful and uncontroversial manner. But no! After those highly political statements made on a local radio station recently, she made some very tribally divisive statement at a "farewell interview" meeting with staff of the commission. We have received a recording of the meeting and are talking with our lawyer on how to use its content. But for now we are very concerned that she appears to have said that in the last six years she was busy recruiting northerners ahead of southeasterners to "square up". She appears to have said that in 2005 when she took over the commission was predominantly southeasterners. Was she not the person who recruited those "southeasterners" she is now talking about! We vividly remember the controversy when she took applications along with her on an overseas travel. Now she is leaving NEC polarised along tribal and regional lines -never mind partisan - far more than she inherited it. What a SISTER! Under political pressure and partisan correctness even the SISTERS themselves are falling.
SARAH PALIN MISSING IN ACTION AS EBOLA RAVAGES DARU
If, well, probably at this stage we should say, WHEN Ebola reaches any of the heavy population centers of this country it will be worse than what is happening in Guinea. We feel very bad saying this about our country but we are now firmly in the grip of the Ebola menace and things will surely get worse before they get better.
From Kissy Teng in the far corner of Kailahun, Ebola has reached the military town of Daru. We have serious doubts about the official figures released by the Ministry of Health. We know of three recent deaths that we believe have not been factored into the national database so far. All these deaths occurred in the town of Daru. A journalist with Eastern Radio in that part of the country, an Okada man who obliged to convey an infected person for healing and a local man who prepared a body for burial are all dead. This is not funny.
At times like this it's not the best thing to apportion blame, but we have no alternative but to blame SARAH PALIN for messing up badly and here's why:
When Ebola peaked in Guinea, many Sierra Leoneans called for stringent actions to prevent the disease from spreading into Sierra Leone. That included banning all non-essential movement between the two countries and so make it difficult for any sort of contact from across the border.
Sierra Leoneans also called for information campaigns to be intensified but Sarah Palin put out a few jingles in Freetown and told everybody to shut up about Ebola. They shut up for four weeks and went to sleep.
SARAH PALIN woke up one morning to find Ebola in her backyard. Now our people are dying and she is refusing to take responsibility for the mess and resign. Instead she goes on radio, to doubt if JOURNALISTS ARE INTELLIGENT. We are not, Mama PALIN. But please RESIGN now let somebody else lead us against Ebola.
SARAH PALIN is safe from Ebola. Because when it gets to Freetown, she will be DEFENDED by simply jumping into Pallo Conteh's heavily guarded road convoy to Lungi, whip out her passport and fly away to Obama land. Even without travel documents her accent is enough for her to be landed safely at Dulles airport. Well done ma'am. Dual citizenship at work. Whatever happened to our law which says people holding dual nationality do not qualify to be appointed minister. Salone for them! Ebola for us!
BLACKOUT GRIPS MAKENI: IS REALITY KICKING IN?
Well we now know that even Makeni is not safe from the new wave of Blackout now gripping Koroma Land. For many residents of Freetown and other major cities, we are worse off today than the last five months running up to the elections that brought De Pa to power in 2007, in terms of electricity.
When parts of Makeni came on last Thursday, especially from the roundabout on Station Road, heading into Compound Street, there was a loud and sustained shout to welcome the power of power. It was almost as if Leone Stars had just scored their first goal against Brazil in a World Cup finals. The people of the Seat of Power, otherwise known as Makeni, must be thinking very seriously now about whether their 24-hour electricity supply was not just another temporary massage of their political loyalty.
We hold no grudge against Makeni because we firmly believe that whether the town was the Seat of Power or not, it must enjoy electricity. The same is true for the whole country. De Pa promised us electricity. As of now, we believe he is holding back because he is in his final term and hence wouldn't need to perform any miracles.
Makeni is going to be in darkness for the foreseeable future. We are sorry for saying that but we are merely being realistic in view of the reported lightening strike that hit the hydro dam recently. never mind post-De Pa era.
CONTAINER POLICE STATION AT KISSY - LONG LIVE MUNU
Is IG Munu really telling us there is nothing he can do about that container police station at Blackhall Road in Kissy? A police station in a place like Kissy, housed in a police station? Come on IG! If this were some temporary and ordinary police post to process some paperwork for a short period we wouldn't mind it; but we have been watching this container police station for sometime now.
The other day, we heard the sound of somebody knocking violently from inside the container. We could only guess that it was somebody detained there who was attempting to get attention. We understand the problem of getting funds for the construction of police stations but why not apply the same strategy you applied to get something done for Lumley. The size and complexity of Lumley makes even the new station unrealistic but the new building has a reassuring presence.
Why can't the IG ask Musa Tarawallie for a piece of land around that area and get money from businesses in the area to start work until the government is able to allocate money to the project. How about even the monies deducted from police officers on peacekeeping duty! In the meantime though, the police must never attempt to detain anybody in a container, unless it was a UN-style container with all the air-conditioning system. Hahahahaha!
When De Pa talks about lawlessness, he should also talk about money for the institution at the fore front of the battle against lawlessness, it's as simple as that.
THE POWER RANGERS SOLUTIONS SAFE: WHAT ELSE DID THE POLICE FIND?
So after days of waiting and speculating, Munu's men have finally told us what, according to them, was in the safe they seized from the offices of the criminal recruitment agency called Power Rangers Solutions. They declared passports and work permits. On behalf of the good people of Sierra Leone, we now ask the police to take an oath that they have told us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We have a good reason for asking.
When it was decided to destroy a large amount of cocaine seized by police in different cocaine busts in Freetown, we remember what happened. Journalists were taken to Kingtom and shown some white powder before it was set alight. But many of those journalists and other observers came from the exercise doubting it was actual cocaine. Was it an elaborate PR exercise meant to hide what was really going on? Because in the weeks following that, the price of cocaine at Frederick Street, Regent Street and other central areas of Freetown, plummeted like Humpty-Dumpty. Some of the officers involved is the exercise, suddenly had a few more pennies to spend. Hahahahahaha! Sorry, may be they won the Mercury Lottery.
We have also witnessed in this country, how Bank of Sierra Leone officials sent to destroy old leone notes suddenly became very rich because they allowed the bags of money to slip through their fingers and return to the market. This is Sierra Leone.
Now back to our question: What else did the police find in that safe? At the moment we don't have anything substantial to say but now that they have declared something, we shall release the results of our own investigations after speaking to all our sources. That should last for another week.
SLFA FINANCIAL RECORDS LAND AT POLITICO
We have almost completed our analysis of financial documents from the Sierra Leone Football Association. Those documents landed on our desk two weeks ago in an envelope marked "explosive documents". We don't know who brought the envelope to our office but we have found the documents extremely interesting.
The next step now is to ask our lawyers to look at what we have produced for publication. We are not taking any risks but at the end of the day, the people of Sierra Leone will get to know what this struggle for power at SLFA is all about. Trust Politico. We thank the Whistleblower for sending us the document.
(C) Politico 11/06/14
