AND IT CAME TO PASS THAT DE PA FINALLY RESHUFFLED HIS CABINET
Speculations about an impending reshuffle of the cabinet ended last Sunday. In the next few weeks we should be able to analyse issues from an informed position, including after possible clandestine briefings from those now sacked. Suddenly they will make themselves available to us again - no more secretaries telling us about their bosses were having endless meetings.
What we can say at this stage is that MORE TIMERS and open political pendulums have finally taken firm control of the government. We have no choice but to focus our radar on their activities once again. There will be ZERO MORE TIME in this country. Elections will take place early in February 2018.
Orbangu has finally landed the job he's been waiting for since spectacularly leaving his own political organisation to join the Red Movement. And the defence portfolio has remained with De Pa while CDS Williams has been sacked. We note a political comeback for a former NPRC spokesman. Politicians never die!
We cannot help but take a closer look at a few guys who were sacked. Please don't ask us why.
Paul Kamara
The Pope came into government with a puritanical zeal to clean up Sierra Leone Football forever. He had long been a campaigner for reforms in the way football is administered. At the Ministry of Sports, he found himself presiding over the most difficult period in the life of not just football but all sporting disciplines. The Pope would be remembered for a few things.
1. He made a lot of racist remarks against Rodney Michael in the run up to the 2014 SLFA Congress that brought Isha Johansen to power. Even Johansen die-hards have since come out to denounced the whole process as absolutely flawed. He went to extraordinary lengths to bring Johansen to office only for them to have a spectacular falling out midway through her mandate.
2. The Pope was very quick to ban people from entering the stadium. The slightest disagreement he had with sports administrators or even journalists resulted in a ban. He was never really able to enforce those bans anyway.
3. Then there was that heated telephone exchange with Sherrington. It went viral on social media and disgraced Sierra Leone. We stand by our original position that he was clearly set up. But we have to add that he completely opened himself up to be treated as such.
So where next for the Pope? In the immediate term, we believe he is returning to his desk at his For Di People newspaper. After that, anything is possible, including paying another highly publicised visit to the headquarters of the Green Movement or putting himself forward for the leadership of the Red Movement.
Alimamy Kamara
The fiery youth minister is out of his dream job so soon? Here was a man who was never afraid to confront the issues in his sector and those issues were many. To deal with poorly-educated, hungry, angry and largely clueless young people is not the most interesting job. But Alimamy Kamara was ready to take issues on at anytime - in the media and on the streets when it became necessary.
We have definitely not seen the last of this man who started his political life as an MP for a constituency in Makeni town. Immediately though, we will remember him for his youth village and farm project outside Freetown. And indeed his public falling out with his deputy and the head of the Youth Commission.
Now he is going to Iran as an ambassador. Iran? In the coming days we will try and do a sketch of the work schedule of Sierra Leone's ambassador to Iran. That should make interesting read. Besides, we are told Alimamy is a Wesleyan? Is that right? It shouldn't matter in the normal run of diplomacy but in Iran, there will be some issues.
Could this then be De Pa telling Alimamy to go away while important party matters are sorted out?
J B Dauda
Frankly, we were never able to come up with a reason why this guy was in government at all. Apart from his struggle to explain himself over the recent noise about the cost of our passports, his Civil Registration Bill and his recent prohibition of sleeveless tops for women in his ministry, there is nothing more to remember about this man's tenure in that office.
De Pa owes us an apology for appointing a man some of us knew as minister when we were in primary school to head a ministry as sensitive as that in the 21st century. Everybody knows the next step of Mungo Park - he started in SLPP, then he went to APC, then SLPP, then APC. He is definitely off to the SLPP once again. We can confirm that he is going there to fight for the leadership of what is left of that outfit.
Alpha Kanu
It was widely speculated that he would be moving over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. People very close to him encouraged us to believe so. But De Pa's plan for all ministers coming out of the information and communication portfolio is to have them as his advisers at the Big House. This must surely count as a really big fall. As it was with IB Kargbo.
And we notice that he is classified as SENIOR ADVISER. In other words the most important of all the many advisers inside the Big House. We however don't think the new job is anything close to the power and influence he wielded as a minister. If that job of ADVISER was important, why did Kothor IB quit to risk defeat in a bye-election? Anyway, Kan Kan Kan gets to keep some of his privileges and that's very important in times like these.
The cost of running our country is still very high and the people don't appreciate that.
(C) Politico 15/03/16
