LAC MAKES CASE ON SOCIAL MEDIA BUT HOW IS IT GOING?
Baimba Moiforay otherwise known as LA Chocolate or LAC is a fugitive. The state of Sierra Leone wants him to return to his cell at Pademba road jail to continue his 25 year sentence for the murder of DJ Cleff some time in 2015. LAC controversially benefitted from a presidential pardon causing an outcry and leaving the president with no option but to REVOKE his own pardon in respect of LAC. We understand LAC is out of the country. He is sheltering somewhere in the world releasing videos on social media trying to convince the country and the world about what he calls a miscarriage of justice that landed him in jail for SEVEN years.
His case is before the Court of Appeal at the moment and we have no idea whether what he is doing on social media right now is having any effect on that process. LAC definitely has a lot of talking to do and from what we’ve noticed the jury is still out on how successful his attempt to gain the sympathy of the world has been after the three videos. We can however say that many people who were totally outraged about the brutal and unnecessary killing of DJ Cleff are spending time to listen to LAC.
His social media appearances are either not professionally produced at all or those producing it are doing a very bad job – it’s long, rambling and repetitive. We don’t know if his lawyers allowed him to testify in his own defence. It would be a nightmare from what we are hearing from him now. There are other things we have picked up but for now we will avoid the technical details and concentrate on the message.
The truth is that a lot of people who depended on social media reports and all the shouting that followed that killing now know a bit more. Whether that has moved their position or not, only time will tell. We have no idea where in this world the guy is hanging out but we look forward to him going to the ECOWAS court to fight his case. He can even hire private investigators – Ex FBI and Scotland Yard people. For now we know him as the guy who killed DJ Cleff until our courts rule otherwise. More videos please!
JUDICIAL ACTIVISM TO DECONGEST THE JAILS
We don’t know how long it would take for our MAGISTRATES in particular and some Judges and the law officers department to pack the so-called correctional facilities again with people who should normally be on bail standing trial or discharged for lack of prosecution. Why it took so long before CJ Babatunde took this massive step is a question we are ready to put to him when he is available to the media but we want to applaud him and his judges for this.
We are keeping a close eye on the work he is doing in the judiciary since he took over. Even his enemies would agree that he has done extremely well. CJ Babatunde has cleared the main Law Courts buildings of the crowds that use to go their every morning for a variety of reasons. The place is now organized and access restricted largely to those who have something to do there. Magistrates have been moved to Pademba road court building and the workers of the judiciary are now comparatively well paid. We know that.
When CJ Babatunde recently met MAGISTRATES to discuss their role in the dispensation of justice, we could guess that he was not happy about something. The statement that came out of that meeting didn’t say much. We didn’t expect anything more than what we were told about a cordial meeting to discuss challenges in the dispensation of justice and how to make things work smoothly. In reality, our MAGISTRATES in particular had locked too many people up instead of granting appropriate bail conditions and the Law Officers had proved too slow to file indictments after preliminary investigations and some people on remand had stayed there too long without seeing a judge and some case files had gone missing. This is what CJ Babatunde is trying to deal with. Good luck to all the judges involved in this process.
We’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about the issues outlined above. We have published and mentioned specific cases to judicial authorities to get them to act. We can now say that we were largely ignored in most cases. Some senior people in the Law Officers department took certain actions in a few cases but as is now clear, the problem is big – we are talking about more than ONE THOUSAND CASES. This is why a whole judiciary has been shut down for a week so the judges can deal with all the cases. In the first place we look forward to the outcome of this exercise and a new approach to case management and supervision that stops MAGISTRATES from unnecessarily locking up so many people.
SLFA PLEASE DON’T FALL ASLEEP AFTER AfCON EXIT
We are still waiting for the SLFA and the Ministry of Sport to talk to us about our next steps after our failed mission to Cameroon. There are a lot of positives to take from our participation in AfCON but the bottom line is that we failed to bring the trophy home. That was our aim. There are other continental and world competitions to look forward to so we don’t have time to waste.
Those in charge of football were supposed to give an account of how things went in Cameroon but they didn’t turn up for a scheduled news conference at the Ministry of Information. We have no idea why. The no-show prompted a lot of social media speculation with some people claiming that people were still working their books.
In truth, we are also interested in the books but for now we want to hear something about the personnel in the national team – the players, technical staff and managers. We believe that more than a dozen players who were part of the team in Cameroon should be retired. On the technical bench also people should be sent home for good. Those remaining should be sent away for refresher training for a few months. Those that are not trainable should either resign or be sacked. This is not an issue we should joke around with.
Some of the decisions made from the bench in all our group stage matches were highly questionable, in fact we were disappointed that we could only wonder how some of our technical people ended up in those positions.
By the way, we call on Principal to put money into our local league. We want to have enough personnel to feed the national team.
MOVING CONTAINERS OF DEATH ACROSS FREETOWN
Sea Cargo Containers moving along the streets of Freetown have become a harrowing experience for commuters and motorists. They are often not chained to the trucks transporting them and that is murderous on the part of the transporters. Worse still, such is the derelict state of most of these trucks coming from the port that we begin to wonder how they got to ply our roads in the first place. Did SLRSA actually clear them to be on the road?
The trailer trucks carrying these containers have crushed innocent people to death after tipping over due to the carelessness of those managing those vehicles including the reckless drivers.
High transportation fees are charged for every loaded container leaving the port but little or no consideration is given to the safety of the vehicles. Some of these are trucks that shouldn’t be running on our roads as they should have well stayed in their scrap yards in Europe. The city is on a hill and it is so scary to see these trucks struggling through crowded streets fully loaded. And to even leave those containers unchained to the truck is an offence that should warrant maximum penalty for such recklessness. Who is listening out there?
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