NOW THE FIGHT AGAINST KUSH IS TRULY ON
We are now beginning to encourage ourselves to believe that something is being done to drastically reduce KUSH consumption in Sierra Leone – let’s NEVER talk about eradicating it at the moment. In fact, we may never be able to achieve that but at least those trading in the deadly substance now know that law enforcement agencies are like objects in the mirror – closer than they appear.
We have received information about a number of arrests, homes being searched and community volunteers on the move to clean up their surroundings. Social media is awash with pictures of ordinary Sierra Leoneans doing one thing or the other to end the KUSH menace. We applaud all of that but as usual we have to note the following:
1. This habit of arresting people and shaving the hair on their heads is wrong and should stop immediately. We don’t even know why people believe shaving suspected KUSH people will take them off the drug. Soon, clean shaven people are going to start facing embarrassment as fingers are pointed in their direction.
2. We need the cooperation of all the agencies leading this fight – the police, the judiciary and community leaders. Accusations and counter accusations about this and that serve no useful purpose.
3. Please, we don’t believe the government should create any institution specifically charged with fighting KUSH. We don’t want a repeat of our experience fighting Ebola and to some extent COVID 19. No further details on this.
4. We MUST also take a long term view of this narcotic drug situation in Sierra Leone. Yesterday, we were dealing with marijuana and cocaine, the latter not too popular in this country among ordinary people, now it’s KUSH. Unless we look beyond the immediate drama and prepare, we will be caught on NO MAN’S LAND again before long. Let’s fix the NDLEA properly with money and personnel, let’s look beyond our borders. This is a very serious issue.
ACCIDENTS, ACCIDENTS AND MORE ROAD ACCIDENTS
In less than two weeks Sierra Leone has lost more than a DOZEN people on our roads. We lost a prominent football coach, several of the senior players of Ports Authority football club sustained serious injuries and are still being treated in hospital. We were still getting to terms with that when news reached us about another ghastly incident just outside Bo town, on the road to Pujehun. Accidents happen daily across the world but the kind of accidents taking place in Sierra Leone are completely avoidable. It’s a fact.
ROAD WORTHINESS of the vehicles is something we can talk about for a whole year. If the law is strictly applied, very few vehicles will remain on the roads. In fact there will be an almighty backlash from the very people we are trying to protect because almost all the commercial vehicles wasting precious belong to the scrapyard.
THE DRIVERS: sometimes we don’t pay too much attention to the kind of people that drive commercial vehicles in particular. Sometimes we even take it for granted that any guy with a license can drive a commercial vehicle. We have paid a heavy price for that. We know they work for long hours and under the influence of all kinds of things – alcohol, KUSH and marijuana. They are badly trained. In fact some are NOT TRAINED at all. We cannot continue like this.
There’s a lot to say about this issue but we will be back.
CCTV CAMERAS AT IPAM TO END EXAM MALPRACTICE
Let’s start by congratulating IPAM for signaling their intention to deal with rogue students who believe they can get degrees and diplomas without actually getting their hands dirty. We don’t know whether other institutions have gone down this road or are even thinking about that. CCTV cameras are good partners in fighting crime all over the world, so well done IPAM.
We have just a few questions bordering on some concerns:
1. Has IPAM covered all the halls used for exams or they have targeted only a few places?
2. Are we sure about the technical people handling the raw footage? We ask because we have witnessed cases in some other situations when material compiled as evidence went missing before investigations got underway.
3. Have we told all the students about the existence of the new partners in the fight against exam malpractice?
4. Is IPAM ready to make footage available to the media incase accused people challenge their decisions based on such footage? We are ready to help.
5. We hope IPAM will provide us with statistics to demonstrate the effectiveness or otherwise of the system at the end of the first semester exams. Good luck
IS THE TOLONGBO BOYCOTT BACK ON?
Tolongbo people have taken their seats in parliament and are busy running local councils in Freetown and the northwest but we just get this feeling that they are still in a boycott mode. We say this because at the commissioning of a watershed project at Newton - first cashew processing factory - neither the Tolongbo MP for the area nor the one from the local council boss presented themselves. And the council chairman and the MP were invited to speak at the occasion which aims to raise women cashew farmers out of poverty.
OK, we received word just before we went to press that the council boss was in neighboring Liberia serving as a CAF Match Commissioner. We know people do what our people from the West call multi-tasking but should a council chairman really be still doing this kind of work? Here are a few other issues:
1. Is Tolongbo really telling us that when their chairman travels out of Freetown the whole council goes into sleep mode? Don’t they have a deputy chairman?
2. How about the MP? Was he in parliament clapping and supporting others as they speak? We don’t get to hear much from many of them anyway.
3. Are they sending a subtle message by their absence that they have no interest in an investment that is likely to create thousands of jobs and ultimately bring praise to Green Boys?
4. Could it be that they actually weren’t invited in good time? Or is it that they didn’t receive enough guarantees about how the day was going to end in that place. Next time company bosses should visit those Tolongbo politicians personally before inviting them to speak at such gatherings. Are we clear now?
5. Please don’t tell us we are reading too much into their absence. We were on the ground and we heard what some people said – not good enough.
Copyright (c) Politico Online (05/04/24)
