IG SOVULA RETIRED, TWO OTHERS REDEPLOYED AWAY FROM THE FORE FOR GOOD
Principal was very patient with IG Sovula throughout his time at George Street. He gave him enough time to turn things around in the SLP and reform his own public profile but in the end, the IG went down by the weight of his own professional blunders and generally simplistic approach to things and brash ways of interacting with the public. As always he wasn’t directly responsible for some of the bad behaviors of his people but as head of the institution, he was always going to be the man on the firing range.
In many ways, we feel a little sorry for IG Sovula. He was very close to retirement, certainly not dreaming of becoming IG of the Force for Good when the Principal called him up and put that extremely complex institution in his hands. He looked around, called a few of his loyal friends, and put them in positions of responsibility but some were clearly incompetent and did absolutely awful things like those at the Benghazi base. Sovula's reaction was to double down and support them.
The Force for Good is notorious for officers undermining their bosses so they can claim positions when their bosses are eventually sacked. IG Sovula suffered badly in the hands of some of those he trusted. He leaves a police force badly in need of repair. We are watching to see how the new guy is going to set up his own team of commanders and the reforms by which he will signal the way he intends to proceed. He has been in the police for a long time and no Sierra Leonean should assume he is coming with a clean slate.
The repairs we are talking about are needed in the following areas:
1. IG Sovula promised and failed to withdraw his officers from traffic duties on our roads. Why make a promise that you don’t intend to keep? The activities of some of these officers are giving the SLP a bad name. There is the road safety corps to deal with traffic matters. At least drastically reduce the number of officers and send the rest into communities for beat patrol.
2. Re-organize the media and outreach division of the SLP. Bring back ASP Samuel Saio Conteh who was punished unjustly and build the media operation around him. He is a good man. Please, completely change the way you engage the media and conduct other outreach activities. Force for Good is generally out of touch with modern-day communication realities.
3. Clean up your detention facilities and close down Benghazi as a place where ordinary people are detained for minor offences. High-value criminals like drug traffickers and terrorists can be held there but even at that point, the normal rules of detaining people should apply. It is only for its maximum security nature that we won’t call for its closure.
4. Senior officers should stop undermining their bosses with bogus social media posts and wicked media briefings. This cycle must stop.
KENEMA GRADUATION PARTY ENDS IN HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS
We join the many Sierra Leoneans praying for those now being treated at the Kenema government hospital for food poisoning. Our understanding is that they went for a graduation party in one of the settlements in Kenema for a NURSERY school child only to end up in the hospital. We don’t want to say too much because we suspect the police have now launched a criminal investigation to determine the quality of the food and so on.
What we really want to talk about is the idea that graduation ceremonies are conducted at every stage of a child’s journey through school beginning from NURSERY. We have reached a point where RASTA SENGS has to step in and stop these many graduation ceremonies. The graduation ceremonies are expensive programs and we cannot understand why parents who always complain about the cost of living are all over the place organizing one graduation after the other when they really don’t need to.
The more the government moves to cut the cost of educating a child, the more parents bring additional expenditure on themselves with their eyes wide open.
We pray that those young souls survive. This affair has now provided an opportunity for SENG to end these graduations. He should also pay serious attention to all secondary schools, particularly at a time like this. The principals are now ready to kill parents with admission charges.
THUNDER STRIKES AGAIN FOR APPRENTICE KAN KAN KAN
Maybe we should now simply give Kan Kan Kan a permanent job as spokesman for the government of Sierra Leone and secure that job for him in the constitution, making it almost impossible to sack him like judges. Anyway, the guy is brilliant; he smiles a lot, he is always very well-dressed, and is never ashamed to make his point. Kan Kan Kan understands how to address the ordinary people of this land that we love. We are talking about those people who always require politicians to open their eyes to some realities.
He has returned to work at State House, taking over that role from Keks. Keks was quick to go on social media and welcome the new Spokesman. He had no choice anyway and he probably acted to take the sting out of any negative comment that people wanted to send his way. He really enjoyed being the Spokesman, certainly more than being a Press Secretary.
By the way, is Kan Kan Kan holding this new job and the one in the north-west at the same time? Is he still a member of Tolongbo?
QUEEN OF SHEBA TAKES TO SOCIAL MEDIA TO TALK ABOUT POTHOLES
Queen of Sheba was back on social media in the last 48 hours talking about potholes on the road to Makeni, the headquarter town of Bombali district in the north of Sierra Leone. King Messi is based there and in his days at the State House, the city was known as the SEAT of POWER.
Apparently, the Queen was up that road on one of her many assignments and she didn’t get a good ride because it was bumpy along some sections of the road. Back home in Freetown, our Queen took to social media to complain about that and to call on the agencies of government charged with the responsibility to deal with potholes to act fast.
On behalf of our readers we want to say we feel sorry about our Queen going through such an ordeal on that road and we hope she is fine after the experience. Anyway the Queen looked good and beautiful as always and those who shot the video did a good job with the framing in general but as good citizens of this land that we love we have a few things to say about the social media post for the attention of our Queen.
1. We know our Queen likes to shake things up on social media – not just doing the buga dance or singing her own songs but dealing with very hard political topics. However, we are at a loss as to why she didn’t ask her staff to assemble the heads of all those agencies she named at her office for serious conversation on those potholes? Did she have to do it on social media?
2. Is it that Bayuku of Koinadugu, the Minister of Public Works and those agencies under his supervision had refused to see the Queen? This is very unlikely but we are only trying to understand why our Queen would choose to go on social media for something like that. Was this appearance a way of preparing us for some movement in personnel in the roads sector? Please be patient with us as we ask these questions.
3. Could it be that with June 2023 in mind our Queen was making a move for the hearts and minds of swing voters in the north? From reactions we have monitored since the video was released many of those on target in that regard are not amused.
4. Anyway, in the same mood, we want to invite our Queen to visit the following places in the middle of FREETOWN and see the situation. This is worse than the potholes on Makeni road – The whole of STEWARD STREET, the lower part of EDWARDS STREET and the whole of ELIZABETH STREET. Long live our Queen!
