OKADA BOYS WITH PEPPER SPRAY
We witnessed a very strange situation the other day along Campbell Street between an OKADA man and two police officers. In fact there was a third party – a private car owner whose vehicle was hit by the Okada man who, we were told was riding like he was leading the Paris-Dakar rally. We gathered that the private car owner had managed to stop the Okada man from fleeing after his car was hit. The Okada man tried in vain to organize a quick settlement because the car owner was not keen on doing a quick deal. In the process he called two police officers who were on some kind of beat patrol over and asked them to handle the case.
The police officers then arrested the Okada man for something other than the crash. It turned out that the Okada man had deployed pepper spray against two other officers at the junction of Campbell Street with Pademba road and fled the scene. In fact the two officers called over by the car owner were on the lookout for this PERPER SPRAY Okada man. He had disguised himself by simply removing his coat. The police officers searched his bag and found the coat he was wearing at the time he deployed the pepper spray. At this point it became what we know in Freetown as TWO TROUBLE, ONE GOD.
We can’t confirm this but some friends told us later that the Okada man managed to escape leaving his bike in the hands of the police while the car owner turned to the police again telling them they MUST get the fugitive to fix his vehicle.
So now, our real issue after the drama is to highlight how dangerous OKADA taxis have become. If they can do that to police officers in broad daylight what stops them from taking advantage of ordinary people? We must protect public servants as they go about doing their work.
And this pepper spray thing, KKY was dragged to court by King Messi because one of his guards had pepper spray. What is an OKADA many doing with it?
On the side of the police, if the report we got that the guy escaped is true, those officers must explain. That bike is owned by somebody. We want to know the status of this issue now.
A GROWING DRUG CULTURE AT BERWICK STREET
Western Police Station is just a stone’s throw from the lower part of Berwick Street. We are talking about the section of that street that leads to Krootown road. We have received a lot of complaints from ordinary people in that place about the exploding KUSH culture there. Young people in that corner of Freetown and their friends from outside have turned Berwick Street into a hard drugs base with their main supplier doing his trade without any regard for the law or the consequences of that trade on the physical wellbeing of our young people. The police station along Adelaide Street is AWARE of what is happening there.
We are not talking about recreational drugs like marijuana anymore. We are talking about KUSH, a very dangerous drug that destroys the mind and makes a total mess of ordinarily decent young Sierra Leoneans. We are working hard to identify the main supplier and his source. We call on IG Sovula to turn his attention to Berwick Street and its rapidly growing drug problem. The residents of Berwick Street raised the issue with us, we have done our bit as a newspaper to reflect the concerns of ordinary Sierra Leoneans in that part of Freetown town and it’s now the turn of IG Sovula and his people to play their own part. Taking hard drugs is NOT COOL
UNIMAX-SL PLEASE PAY YOUR STAFF NOW
We simply want a company called UNIMAX-SL to know that we have interviewed about a dozen of the casual workers they recently recruited to drop CITY RATE demand notices to thousands of homes and businesses in Freetown. We have looked at the contracts UNIMAX-SL signed with these young people and we are can confirm that some injustice is taking place right now that we should urgently tackle. We may be wrong but we have not seen too much around about this company and we congratulate them for giving those young people something to do. However, this idea of not paying people weeks after completing a piece of job contrary to the contractual arrangement is something we are totally against.
We heard from some of the nearly ONE HUNDRED young people who did the job that UNIMAX-SL is telling them to wait until their principals (FCC) pay up.
The best we can tell UNIMAX-SL is to look for money from elsewhere and pay the young guys who delivered on average FIFTY demand notes a day for weeks. It’s a difficult job for which they should be paid. At this state we are only highlighting the issue for you to do what you promised to do.
As for the FCC, we will turn to their Buwa-Bisieh boss the next time we touch this issue. Casual workers MUST BE PAID IMMEDIATELY after the job. That’s it. We will be back.
FIFA AND CAF HAVE COME AND GONE: LET’S NOW VOTE
Let’s not spend too much time on what was said at the State Lodge on Wednesday evening when Infantino of FIFA and his boy Motsepe of CAF visited Principal. All we heard was that all stakeholders must work together for the development of the beautiful game in this land that we love. Haven’t people said that a million times before? So while we appreciate the fact that the powerful figures in world football found time to visit our country, we urge them to tell their Queen to end this shame of holding office illegally for FOUR YEARS despite all the VERY LOUD noises of disapproval.
We were expecting them to publicly blast this idea that in trying to stay in office crooked judicial bodies could be put in place deliberately to disadvantage certain strong candidates. Why should FIFA and CAF even deal with an official who makes damaging allegations against her opponents and then tells parliament she lied to win an election only for her own organization to clear the same people of those allegations?
Anyway, the spontaneous demonstration that greeted Infantino and Motsepe on Wednesday evening as they arrived in Freetown was a clear demonstration of how much people are fed up with this manipulative SLFA administration. The SLFA blamed their usual punching bag Rodney Michael for coordinating the demonstration from the back. What a shame? Guys go get a life. Even Michael will be surprised at what happened at Wednesday night at Aberdeen. The message is finally home. No need for emails anymore.
Infantino has heard from the good people of Sierra Leone.
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