TO GO OR NOT TO GO: MAMA CHIEF JUSTICE IS VERY SILENT
The Chief Justice has been very silent since news broke that the ACC was calling for her to leave office because she was passed the age of retirement. We understand that naturally she is a very quiet person but as things stand now, OUR LADY has to speak out. Ok she couldn't appear before our elected representatives not too long ago and there are arguments here and there about that, but that's water under the bridge. The new issue with OUR LADY, concerns her continued stay in office after age of retirement. It's extremely serious.
And we feel a little disturbed that the debate has reached this level. What was supposed to be a very quiet affair, has now become a debate on breakfast radio. Let OUR LADY speak. It is not enough for the Attorney General to spring to her defence every time she is challenged on issues relating to her office.
We love the Chief Justice and we believe she shouldn't have allowed herself to be caught in the headlamps of national publicity. To us, the best she can do now, is retire peacefully.
Margaret Thatcher actually won that acrimonious leadership contest in her party but the whole process leading to Michael Heseltine's challenge and the size of her victory, convinced her it was time to go. In the same way, a case in the Supreme Court where lawyers would make passionate arguments from their own perspectives and with people like us hanging on every detail to continue the drama of a Chief Justice clinging on, will be totally unnecessary for a woman who has kept very quiet throughout her time in the judiciary.
Anyway, that's all we can say as citizens who dearly love OUR LADY, THE CHIEF JUSTICE.
TWO TOILETS FOR FIFTEEN THOUSAND PEOPLE: WELCOME TO SUSAN'S BAY
Journalists are sometimes accused of being alarmist. A head line like the one above has the potential to alarm anybody, including those who live at Susan's Bay along the long coastline in the Freetown bay. The facts are clear. Visit Susan's Bay, take some pictures and make up your mind about journalists being always alarmist.
Let's try and see how 15, 000. 00 people could use two toilets daily. Imagine people preparing to go to work, school and petty trading in the morning. It's a frightening thought. But after studying the hopelessness of the situation, we want to be of some help to the people of Susan's Bay. Here we go:
1. Never try using the toilet in the morning as you prepare to go to work. Frankly, the traffic will be too heavy and you may not be able to go to work at all. Instead wake up in the dead of night and do your thing. Eat no hot food in the morning until you reach your office. Most offices have some kind of toilet that you can use. The market women can sort things out in the buildings around their stalls, as usual.
2. The community should have a bye-law relating to the use of the toilets. It must have as an entrenched clause that all children under 18 must do their thing on the shore line and provide some good protein diet for those pigs that Bababode can't control.
3. Make sure you have resident soil men who will be called to duty every two weeks, particularly in the male toilet. The female toilet could go on for about a month.
4. Have an endless supply of crude disinfectant with every resident being supplied with one litre per week.
5. Finally, tell your MP and Councilor that they should forget about campaigning in the next elections. Tell them they will be defeated. Go on and vote for a reasonably educated soil man. He stays in the community - he feels it and he knows it. Come on Susan's Bay!
NEW SECURITY POSTURE AT YOUYI BUILDING, BUT IS IT WORKING?
Try entering Youyi Building from the FSSG end and you come face to face with what qualifies as very bad organisation - in security terms. The authorities are attempting to secure one of the most important buildings in this country after a string of thefts and extremely bad behaviour in the place. But the new system is in danger of failing badly.
The last time we passed by, we saw almost one hundred people hanging outside to be processed through the main entrance. Almost all of those people are simple BOLA BOLAS from the ruling party going there to harass ministers and senior civil servants. This is just not on. Youyi Building is about transacting government business. In fact, why don't the security officers set up an intercom system through which they can contact anybody inside the building before the BOLA BOLAS are allowed to proceed beyond that point. We have a few questions:
1. Don't the security people know that there is a huge opening in the fence by the Old Railway Line end through which people enter Youyi Building? Any security outfit worth its salt will notice how that loophole makes a mockery of what they are doing at the FSSG end.
2. If we are so concerned about securing Youyi Building, why are those marijuana-loving Benghazi Boys still hanging out in the far end of the compound pretending to be helpful to car owners entering Youyi Building? The aroma of cheap marijuana in the compound of a building as important as that is an anathema.
3. In all seriousness, what is wrong with those people selling newspapers inside the building being thrown out of the place? There's enough space close to the bus station.
4. Let's also kindly ask all physically-challenged people who hang out there to leave with immediate effect. Begging is very demeaning and let nobody tell us physically-challenged people cannot find more respectable means of earning a livelihood. The disability commission has a lot to do besides throwing bundles of money and gifts around like Santa.
A SINGLE FERRY PACKED BEYOND CAPACITY: CAN WE REALLY BEAT EBOLA?
Well, well, well, we have now come down to just one ferry boat travelling between the airport town of Lungi and Freetown. Thousands of people use that route daily but our leaders have never treated that issue with respect.
The other guy promised to build a bridge and end the chaos. He left office ten years later without doing even the feasibility studies. We don't know what De Pa is doing. His boy, brother THIRD TERM Logus says he will flood the country with one hundred buses. We are waiting - but we don't know for how much longer because with the road through Port Loko done, many people now prefer that to being packed like sardines on a dirty ferry.
There are so many inconsistencies in our strategies to fight Ebola that sometime we wonder when this war would be over. We have stopped taxis from packing five people in like pre-Ebola days. We have stopped people from using the same helmets to avoid coming in contact with each other's sweat but look at what happens on the ferry - Abacha street is a joke. With that ferry and Abacha doing business as usual, how come 19 people watching football were brought before a court for disobeying emergency rule?
Put Ebola to one side and consider the safety issues around that ferry. To say it's a disaster waiting to happen might be too much but we don't have to be too scared to say there might be danger ahead.
A NEW KING JIMMY MARKET? WHAT ABOUT THE STRAY PIGS, DEAR MAYOR
Every time we try to pretend as if Freetown didn't have a Mayor, Bababode springs up with one big announcement about something. In the last few days, he has come up with a plan for an ultra-modern market facility at King Jimmy. This time he had some engineering firm backing him up. We respect that firm a lot so this is what we have for them;
CEMMATS must know that Bababode has failed spectacularly with some pronouncement. We have him on record immediately after the collapse of King Jimmy bridge. Surely, he wouldn't want to listen to that recording anymore, hahahahahaha! So we warn CEMMATS not to be too gung ho about that imaginary King Jimmy market. By the way, traders have finally conquered Rawdon Street and are gradually closing in all other streets in the Central Business District. There are traders very close to the World Bank Country office in Freetown of all places. Aayyyyyy Salone!
Sewa Grounds market ought to have been completed by now to end that so-called stop gap measure on Radown Street. Now, it looks as if it's a permanent thing. Bababode's King Jimmy Market remains a dream until we wake up one morning from a sound sleep to find all pigs gone from Freetown. We are tired.
© Politico 13/11/14
