LIFE WITHOUT HIS iPad: WE JOIN THE SEARCH FOR DE PA’S MISSING GADGET
It was quite a sight to behold: a State House IT man led in handcuffs by police investigating his alleged stealing of De Pa’s iPad. Just imagine how ordinary people like us would react to our mobile phone being stolen by some criminal in Freetown. Apart from the machine itself, the amount of data that people accumulate on such machines over even a very short period will be enough for anybody to cry on losing them. We don’t yet know how much official or private data was contained in De Pa’s iPad. For now, we are concentrating on finding the machine so that it doesn’t land in the wrong hands.
We have engaged the services of a private investigator – a former senior detective who served this country diligently. After signing his one-month contract, we briefed him on his assignment as such:
a. Don't re-invent the wheel as we don't have too much time. Investigation of all such incidents in Sierra Leone begins with a visit to the base of De Pa's great friends at BELGIUM. It could well be that during that US$ 65,000Wahala, including the meeting at State Lodge and photo-op, Belgium people made up their minds about the iPad.
b. Please don't tell any of your former colleagues in the so-called Force for Good about your work. They will surely tip off the criminals and complicate the investigation.
c. Merely securing the iPad will not be enough. Please ensure that the data is intact. We don't want people reading serious state documents or looking at pictures that are simply the private business of De Pa.
Our man is in the first week of his task and already he has hit several interesting lines of inquiry. He has assured us that in three weeks his final report will be on our table. We will deal with the document in the best interest of our people.
BACKROOM SCHOLARSHIP DEAL ENDS IN RAPE ALLEGATION
Rape is a very serious offence. Even an allegation of rape raises eyebrows everywhere. Our dear Deputy Minister of Education, Science and Technology, who has a very puritanical approach to everything, has landed in real hot waters. This was the guy who went to Albert Academy and did things that were completely over the top for a minister – no details please. He also gave principals and teachers a good tongue-lashing at a meeting at Government Rokel Secondary School about how they can be good citizens. Now, our whiter than white minister has his reputation badly soiled and he needs something more powerful than all-know detergents to clean up.
The rape allegation should be dealt with by the courts and our dear minister and his family, who are now on some media offensive of their own, should be informed that the lurid details of this affair, as will play out in the court, will be reported in Politico. That's where we are now.
But for many, the real questions also include: how people get scholarships from the ministry of education and what standards we expect of people in public life.
Let any Sierra Leonean tell me they truly believe that only those really deserving of scholarships, both the local Grant-in aid and opportunities to study abroad – including but not limited to Commonwealth Scholarships - hahahahado get them. Consider ties with close family and political connections.
A minister holds office in trust for the people. Through their MPs who approve them, the whole nation believe those ministers will work in the interest of the whole country at all times and to the best of their ability and not outright narrow interests like family and sex matters.
Put the rape matter aside for now, we have had some kind of access to what our former minister told the police on record and we stand on solid ground to question whether he had the whole nation in mind in his dealings with that lady.
In some countries, merely admitting to having extra-marital sex is enough for ministers to resign. In Sierra Leone those things look like a given despite obvious implications for national security and resources. As they say in the UN, we remain ceased of this matter.
DE PA DECLARES HILL COT ROAD A NO-GO AREA – WATCH OUT
Well it was a good thing De Pa prioritised the fixing of Wilkinson Road. Never mind the questionable rationale for it in view of the shoddy job, its colossally expensive nature (over US$ 1million per kilometre to only expand a road) and the fact that the densely populated place of the Wretched of the Earth in the east of Freetown would have been more value for money.
Anyway…it was still good that De Pa fixed it for more reasons than one because despite security advice that presidential convoys should avoid Hill Cot Road, after the botched coup by GMT Kaikai and others in the 1980s, De Pa defied it and chose to be using it. Well now he no longer uses it but for different reasons. De Pa has for weeks now been using Wilkinson Road.
This is why we think Wilkinson Road :
1. He is embarrassed by the numerous potholes that have completely taken over Hill Cot Road and, like 444, they are hitting the masses hard. But he still cannot avoid them because from his Lodge, the potholes are bigger and deeper and larger than cauldrons.
2. The bridge on the road is dug out and could be another King Jimmy. So soon De Pa could be indicted when he leaves office for NEGLECT and DERELICTION OF DUTY to save the souls of the potential victims.
3. The young guys at the Car Wash attempted to remove De Pa’s election poster which they used to DREG and they did get some freebies. After all no more freebies and Hill Cot Road, like the rest of the vast majority across the country, is caving in. So much for the WORKS YARD that De Pa and Petito say the country has become.
4. It is dawning on him now that he cannot run for a third term, discounting LOGUS’ gibberish garrulousness for which his lifelong ambition was fulfilled to be made transport minister despite his unexplained sacking at the VP’s office and many other suspected shenanigans. We will return to this because Logus told the nation on radio recently that on his CV for this job was that he worked atairports in the USA. But he did not tell us in what capacity. We know.
For now we can only ask whether someone who worked as a mail carrier in London can use that to head our SALPOST.
Anyway…But De Pa cannot dare try the Third Term nonsense. It will be defeated.
5. De Pa no longer uses Hill Cot Road because the earth-moving machines that were parked along the road around election time last year under the false hope and radio hype that work would soon start on the road, have been removed. They even started felling trees to fool the fools because we knew it was an election decoy. LOL! Well De Pa does not want to remind himself of hoodwinking the people of which he became a part by not denying the false hope.
BABA OBASANJO SHOULD LOOK CLOSER TO HOME: HEAL THYSELF FIRST, SIR.
With the PDP party in Naija on the verge of disintegrating, Baba Obasanjo should roll up or even cut off, his gown sleeves to help his party like he helped De Pa and his Red Flag Movement in November last year. That is assuming he still commands any clout in Naija like he seems to do here where people in authority are without clout.
And as he positions himself for our potential oil he may just get a rude awakening. We know they have been devising very undemocratic means to stay in power like chasing out those State Governors challenging BAD LUCK from running again, but if the PDP lose in Naija in 2015, Baba Obasanjo’s interest and influence here will wane.
So may it be so that he will mind his business and stay out of our politics. We love and respect Naija, but Baba Oba may ruin all of that the next time he attempts to meddle into our politics. We are living in a country where anything is possible. Can you imagine what would have happened had De Pa been made part of the Obama campaign and actually allowed to speak at an Obama rally in Maryland (where many Sierra Leoneans live), urging Americans to re-elect Obama?
The American people would not only have thrown Obama out of the White House but they would have called on their new leader to re-consider their diplomatic relationship with Sierra Leone.
Baba can no longer be a private citizen - He is a former president and an election observer all over Africa for some organisations that are confused as to who to appoint in such a role. Today he is in one country endorsing a candidate, tomorrow he goes to observer some election in Comoros claiming to be independent. Lego we ya!
(C) Politico 17/09/13
