CHIEF SIDIKIE IN KONOLAND: BUT ISN'T HE TOO LATE?
So chief Sidikie has finally broken out of his cocoon overlooking IMATT in the mountain area of Freetown to visit Konoland. Well, our dear chief come from that district that has attracted so much political attention since he became the principal adviser to De Pa.
We understand Sidikie has always being in touch with his people but it was good to go on the ground again after all the recent events ranging from the arrest of Adamu and several other people. How was it chief? We think it was very refreshing too to leave IMATT for a while. Chief, your compound itself is a revelation but meeting people in those deprived communities is also good at times.
We are a little concerned though that your message on how to prevent Ebola came a little late in the day? These Konoland is recording zero cases so that tells us the people now know what to do. Why didn't you go in November for this kind of tour? Why didn't you go on the ground when Adamu was misbehaving in the place? The people of Konoland really needed your leadership in those periods, you know. Mobile phones are completely ineffective in such situations. Anyway!
Chief, we've heard and read a lot about you facing expulsion from the Red Movement and all that. What is the truth sir? We are looking forward to you calling a news conference soon to address that and many other issues. Please be ready for a long news conference, in fact as long as five hours because we don't know when the next opportunity will show up. Please we don't expect ITEM 13 or transport refund. We are very used to that now. The news is what is really important. Long live chief Sidikie.
ONCE UPON A TIME, SIERRA LEONE AND A BEAST CALLED SENSITISATION
The story of Sierra Leone's relationship with this beast is an interesting one but an unhappy one for the people of this country. This was a war time beast that came to Sierra Leone that has refused to go and is in fact mutating into several other forms. The people are fed up with their relationship with SENSITIZATION but it would appear as if the beast is hanging on.
Parliament has asked us not to drill into the Auditor General's report on the Ebola funds. We are not very happy with what look like a gagging order and we expected SLAJ to challenge that. We are still waiting. But we note that SENSITISATION will feature prominently in the coming Public Accounts Committee hearing into the management of the Ebola funds.
SENSITIZATION has little or no receipts, it's not easily monitored or evaluated, there are professional workshop participants in clusters all around the country who know what to do with SENSITIZATION. Many a time, SENSITIZATION gets the biggest allocation in the budgets of ministries, agencies and departments and indeed civil society groups.
We don't know where this phenomenon got its name from and we've checked and checked without success. We suspect it came from NGO project writing workshops during the war and has refused to go.
Next time you meet SENSITIZATION in any piece of writing, please don't touch it. It's a very dangerous beast.
SLUM DWELLERS CREEPING ON THE ATHENS OF WEST AFRICA
Give us another year and pigs, the kinds that invade Freetown from Kroo Bay, would be roaming the campus of Fourah Bay College. It's easy to understand why we say so. A huge slum community is now in place in what was the world’s famous botanical gardens and the people who live in that community are now causing a lot of headache for authorities, lecturers and students of FBC. It's a very serious matter.
Land grabbers too have moved in. Researchers who go to what is left of botanical gardens are threatened with ISIL style killing. This is no exaggeration. We are witnesses to the worse kind of killing over land matters in this country - the case of Building Inspector Kenneth Moore. To this day nobody has been convicted for that killing of a government official on lawful duty. That incident really shamed Sierra Leone.
If the political authorities think we are making this up, then let them go on the ground. Here's what we think should happen:
1. Those people squatting on FBC land must be removed immediately. The government can do this today. The impression must not be created that people can grab land from anywhere and employ violence and political blackmail to legitimise ownership.
2. The question of re-locating them to other places must never be an issue in this. All of those people came from somewhere to grab the land. Let them return.
3. The Environment Protection Agency blocked the construction of a Catholic Church on the campus saying water catchment area would be damaged. But the squatter have built their homes inside the catchment zone. Hahhahahahahah, interesting eh? Those who wanted to build the church are relying on papers, the criminals inside the catchment zone can actually kill - clever chaps, EPA.
4. We warn the squatters that if students return to campus at the time their pigs start roaming, there would be no guarantee the students wouldn't organise themselves big dinners at Wisdom Tree.
5. At the moment many stray dogs are enjoying themselves on FBC campus. Who cares? May be the squatters should be employed to put them down. Suddenly, the squatters would look like good neighbours....hahahahahahahaha!
WHEN WILL THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE RESUME
We now know there's an SLFA congress coming up in April. We believe some political careers would end in that congress hall in Makeni. We will be there to see Sierra Leone Football change forever. What we don't know, is just when the local football league would begin? Is that also tied to the SLFA congress? No we don't think so.
The league was suspended when Ebola struck. It was a good move at the time but now that position is looking increasingly untenable - a lot of restrictions have been lifted by the government as we move towards the dying days of Ebola. The roads are open again, taxis have their full passenger set again, schools would re-open soon, Kamboi Eagles, the team from the former epicenter district is playing international football in Algeria. So why are we not returning to the national stadium?
When the queen returns from her unnecessarily well-publicised speaking engagement somewhere in Europe she must re-start the league. That doesn't mean we have no concerns about the physical condition of the stadium.
1. We must deploy the fire service to pump water into the system and flush out all the toilets that are now packed with rubbish.
2. We need millions of gallons of disinfectant to deal with the stench of urine now steaming through even the presidential pavilion.
3. All dreg man dem living in the room at the basement of the main bowl must leave immediately.
4. The grass on the pitch could now hold a rebel army. Let's get the guys who worked on the pitches in little Equatorial Guinea to make our own playing area look good.
5. Since the queen has good money to spend on SLFA, all matches in the coming league should be free. That will bring some people back to the stadium. Is that helpful?
© Politico 19/02/15
