FIRST CASUALTIES OF THE COI AND WHITE PAPER
It’s very clear now that Principal is EXTREMELY serious about implementing all the recommendations in the White Paper based on the report from the Commissions of Inquiry. He has directed that those names in the COI reports and the White Paper should leave office with immediate effect. Actually we called for them to be thrown out of office on the same day the White Paper and COI reports came out. More than a week later we heard reports that some of them were beginning to fall on their swords. The Public Notice issued by State House on Monday is very clear. They should go NOW.
We are however beginning to hear different interpretations of the State House statement coming from those who we believe are refusing to accept that they have been found wanting and should pay for their sins against the good people of Sierra Leone. Surely the ball is once again in the court of State House to take action to give effect to that public notice. And this is what we think should happen:
1. We want the Human Resource Management Office or HRMO to issue letters to all the civil servants affected by that report to get out of office now. We should not convince ourselves so falsely that they will jump without being pushed. We don’t trust people who constantly adjust their birthdays downward just to stay in office till they are at death’s door.
2. As far as the politicians and Parastatal bosses are concerned – assuming there is any difference – the Secretary to the President who wrote their letters of appointment should also write to send them home. And we plead with them to also post their dismissal letters on social media in the same way they clogged up our phones with their letters of appointment.
3. When all of that is done, please publish a list of all those RELIEVED of their duties for our records.
4. We make this request again: we want the CHIEF JUSTICE to move the COURT of APPEAL from the main Law Courts Building to the SPECIAL COURT complex. The volume of appeals going in now will bring a lot of people to the center of town. The people involved are rich; they have big cars and many people benefitting from their so-called kindness. We don’t want them to disrupt our lives further.
5. Please put the appeals process on TV. We want to once again hear all the MATERIAL FACTS not all this talk about dates and this and that.
OKADA POLICE BOYS ARE GOING BEYOND THEIR CALL OF DUTY
We have to now clearly define the role of those SELF-APPOINTED Okada police officers that now operate along our Force for Good and the Road Safety Cops. We see them all over the country behaving like police officers. They arrest Okada Riders under the noses of our Force for Good and process them in small corners using their own kangaroo legal system. Can Sovula please tell us how these people came to be on our streets performing the duties of the Sierra Leone Police and the Road Safety Authority?
There is nothing wrong with any group of people forming an association and appointing people from among themselves to manage their affairs. But when they begin to creep on the constitutional duties of our Force for Good, we have a very big problem with that and the fact that the so-called Force for Good appears to have accepted the situation leaves us in a state of utter confusion.
The other day we saw one of them with a crown on his beret. The same crown found on our police officers. What is all this?
How will Sovula cope with all associations deciding to form their own police or vigilante units to police their members? Pharmacists will have their own group, lawyers, journalists, doctors, nurses, even teachers and so on. There will be total chaos in this country.
Sovula must act now. If the Okada Police people want to secure the interest of their members they have many ways to go about it. We don’t want to see them on the streets doing police duties.
QUEEN JOHANSEN EMBARKS ON DISGUISED CAMPAIGN WITH FIFA COVID-19 FUNDS
If FIFA was a referee in a boxing match in Sierra Leone, this is what they would have done effectively: they would have tied the one hand of the boxer representing the Football Stakeholders behind his back and put him in a ring to fight the SLFA boxer with both hands free. Surely, that’s open invitation to murder in the ring.
How can FIFA really explain this: We have a situation in Sierra Leone where an SLFA president that was elected unopposed – in very CONTROVERSIAL circumstances – continues to hold that office going to EIGHT YEARS through sheer manipulation, threats and bullying of her own members with the FULL BACKING of FIFA. To achieve this FIFA has banned and unbanned Sierra Leone as if the interest of ONE PERSON is more important than that of our beloved country and the beautiful game.
In the wake of COVID–19, the QUEEN has a perfect excuse not to even talk to her members, citing coronavirus containment restrictions; but she is all over the place holding big meetings drumming up support for a fight to remain in office. Meanwhile, those who want to throw her out are not allowed to do anything. And she daily threatens to disqualify them from the race, accusing them of match-fixing and anti-FIFA nonsense. And in all of this FIFA is saying nothing.
We call on the NEW DIRECTION administration to immediately ask this woman to release a program detailing how the SLFA will hold their elective congress BEFORE CHRISTMAS. We should NOT go into 2021 with this undemocratic set up at the SLFA. We will NOT accept that.
She knows she will be out of office the day she allows the delegates to vote at a properly-constituted congress.
WHEN CABINET MINISTERS TURN UP LATE FOR SLPP NEC MEETING
So these ministers knew they had to attend a meeting of their party’s National Executive Committee and they probably travelled the night before but inexplicably turned up late for the meeting in the heart of Bo city. Principal was there and all the other senior officials of the party arrived on time. The event was given an unprecedented level of security and the media was totally shut out. We were in our little corner as always, observing things on behalf of the good people of Sierra Leone.
We keep saying that the Sierra Leonean has an irritating and shocking apathy when it comes to honouring time, irrespective of the importance of their engagement.
At the Wizard Complex on Dambala road in Bo where the event took place, three Cabinet Ministers showed up late and like the Biblical foolish virgins, the door was completely shut at them!
The stern looking security detail would not let them in at all. Principal, as we all know, is as alert as a bird in spring when it comes to timeliness. He busted lethargic Civil Servants at the Youyi building, just weeks after assuming power, and did the same at Cottage Hospital. That alone was enough to let his senior officials know his aversion to lateness.
This time in Bo, the Ministers showed up when the sessions were well and truly underway. One could imagine the embarrassment splashed all over their faces as the security personnel told them they won’t be let in! Principal was already there and fully absorbing what was going on in the hall.
Somebody occupying Public Office is expected to be a pacesetter that people can look up to, but displaying such apathy to time can give a rather bad image of not just yourself but the very institution you belong to. Some of our Public Officials do not respect appointments; you honour their appointment, you would be left sitting in their waiting room for hours, completely ignoring just how relevant to you the time that was being wasted by them. Over the years, Diplomats and other Western visitors have bitterly complained about the way our Public Officials respond to appointments. The Bo incident was just a demonstration that Old Habits Die Hard.
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