WHEN POLITICIANS FALL OVER THEMSELVES TO DEFEND FREE SPEECH
For the first time ever in this history of independent Sierra Leone, Ruling Party politicians have gone into trenches to fight for "FREE SPEECH" right of a group of naked sycophants and their allies in so-called Civil Society organisations to say anything they feel like saying as long as it favours the More Time campaign on which pins the hope to extend De Pa's hold on power in Sierra Leone. As far as the nation is concerned, De Pa has not made any such case. We are waiting for that day.
But isn't it strange that government ministers who have caused journalists to be locked up for SMS text messages and comments on social media which fall squarely within the bounds of FREE SPEECH are the ones now defending the "FREE SPEECH" rights of the More Timers?! Strange! What a country! People do things just to serve their own narrow interests and they think we are all blind to the realities - like they are to honesty and conscience.
As we write, we know of nobody from the More Time campaign who's even been questioned by the CID for the most common crime in Sierra Leone today - INCITEMENT. We don't think there's anybody in this country who knows how to express their democratic views on issues without being accused of INCITEMENT. When somebody described Sierra Leone as a nation of "fear and hunger", we think that person was absolutely correct, he was troubled. Even journalists have cold shiver running down their spines daily.
It's beginning to look like the only way to have enough money in the pocket these days - more than enough to eat for a whole year and be totally free from being arrested for commenting on social media - is to become a More Timer. Sadly, the vast majority of the people of Sierra Leone prefer to starve than to endorse More Time. But because a different rule applies to them, they are afraid to speak out for fear of being arrested and locked up on some phoney and funny grounds.
TRASH HEAPS IN THE BACKYARD OF CHINESE HOSPITAL
When this talk of TRASH from Lebanon passed through Freetown recently, we found it really difficult to understand how any serious-minded Sierra Leonean would allow trash from far away Lebanon to be brought to this country with all the special difficulties that poses. Not least the fact that we are already swimming in rubbish with clueless Bababode pretending to be running the city, and MASADA sending all their time making media appearances instead of cleaning the place.
Next time you drive or walk past that Chinese hospital at Jui, on the main road into or out of town just look around and see the amount of rubbish that is piling up right now there. Now it has stretched to nearly ONE HUNDRED METERS towards Waterloo. Are the authorities truly telling us they've not noticed that all this while? Isn't it ACCEPTABLE, like we were told the Lebanese wanted to do, for somebody to use that as FERTILIZER?
Our immediate concern is that even if we can't control trash and it's been thrown all over the place, we should at least be able to protect places like hospitals so people don't get bitten by mosquitoes when they go there to cure some other ailments. Please let's not allow the Chinese to do that for us. I hope the mosquito-borne Zika virus that is ram paging Brazil; doesn't get here. NA TIN GO BE NA DIS DORTY PLACE!
The point is, it's so easy to know where the trash is coming from. Let the authorities look at the community around that hospital and tell us they can't find those heaping the rubbish in the place. That's a real shame.
WERE LESSONS REALLY LEARNT IN SIERRA LEONE'S EBOLA WAR?
We want to humbly appeal to Pallo Conteh to please send us a copy of his Ebola exit book titled LESSONS LEARNT. We've been dying to get a copy since its BIG TIME launch in Freetown. We wanted to have it in some small corner at home as a guide in uncertain Ebola times. Now since the recent new Ebola cases in Kambia and Tonkolili, we think we need copies urgently.
Can Pallo please explain to us how come, well from what we now know, it appears little or no LESSONS WERE LEARNED after all. We don't need to stress people with the details of how the late woman met her death and all those she put at risk and the quarantine fiasco in Kambia, but let's say the truth - people simply fell asleep and probably opened the way for Ebola to sail through once again.
It's simply scary to start thinking about the number of missing Ebola contacts on the run instead of being in quarantine in Kambia or Magburaka. And the fact that the community appears to be refusing to cooperate with health authorities makes one think NO LESSONS LEARNED. Let's make a few things clear to Pallo and his people at the former NERC:
1. We will never return to that NERC situation with their big salaries. No more!
2. In fact, even for this fresh outbreak, we need new faces and voices in this Ebola war.
3. Let's also commission a MAJOR REVIEW of that Lessons Learned pamphlet to reflect reality.
4. Let is drag some health ministry officials out of their cocoon and civil service reluctance to get to do the job.
IS MILE 38 A CHECKPOINT OR A COLLECTION POINT FOR THE FORCES?
Every corruption debate ends with the police being crowned as champions of the game. If corruption was football they would easily be the BARCELONA. They have a standard line in response - they tell the world that indeed there are bad apples in the force but that efforts are being made to weed them out. We agree, but the bad apples, we dare say, appear to have grown in number and influence to the extent that the good ones are beginning to look just as bad.
Munu must explain to this nation what the deployment at Mile 38 is really about. In fact, even the army chief should say something because his boys are also part of the collection drive at Mile 38. And they are so brazen. We know members of our security forces to be very discreet in collecting bribes, but those at Mile 38 are in a class on their own - they receive it openly, they sometimes negotiate how much bribe is paid, like some Guinea police at the checkpoint who give change from a bribe. Simply disgusting!
We recommend the following to stop this unrelenting harassment of ordinary passengers:
1. Routinely move your people around so they don't get used to a particular area of deployment
2. Give them adequate provisions. Well, for them there is nothing called adequate, so let's say something that gives the authorities a stronger hand in dealing with those taking bribes.
3. Reduce the number of police and soldiers in those places and reorganise Mile 38 in particular. For now, it's too chaotic for any proper work to be done.
4. Some people who can afford a few pennies simply pass through - no security checks and sometimes no temperature checks. Only cheques. So what's the point of having that collection point, causing the gridlock that is often around the place!
5. BO DUYA UNA PULL DA TIN DAE! Close the place.
(C) Politico 28/01/16
