QUEEN FATIMA STEPS INTO THE SLPP LEADERSHIP DEBATE
Over the last SIX years the Queen has developed a reputation of somebody who is not afraid of speaking up on issues she feels strongly about. She has faced criticism many times but gives as much as she gets from time to time.
She’s been in the US in the last few days attending a program organized by the SLPP people in Dallas, Texas and she apparently waited for that even to enter the growing debate about who will succeed her husband at the end of his second term in 2028. For weeks and months now, social media has been awash with names of SLPP people stepping forward, some already have active working groups and active ground operations around the country. It’s as if this was now a full blown campaign ahead of the SLPP delegates’ conference to select a leader.
Actually, the Queen is not the first person to say the things she said at that meeting but coming from her was surely going to get people talking even more. We just listened to a supporter of one of the potential aspirants, essentially asking the Queen to mind her business.
1. The Queen told the SLPP faithful out there not to get carried away this early and urged them to concentrate on the BIG 5 agenda for now. Does she really think those people in the room were totally on her side?
2. We ask because we know that one of those building teams on the ground now actually paid some cash towards organizing the program she attended.
3. Was that why she encouraged them to take any money offered to them by potential aspirants but refuse to be swayed by the size of the wallet?
4. Has the queen not shattered all of what some people have been saying in small communities around this country? Well, we’ve heard that the Queen has endorsed some of the aspirants. Next time they turn up in our community we will play that Dallas speech to them.
LET’S WELCOME OUR PILGRIMS HOME FROM THE HOLY LAND
On Friday our relatives who’ve just returned from pilgrimage to the Holy Land will be in mosques for their usual congregational prayers. They will be joined by family members as always. On behalf of our numerous readers, we want to congratulate them for going through a very important process in the lives of all Muslims. We pray that God grants them all the blessings they prayed for and rightly deserve. We call on them to continue praying for the peace and prosperity of Sierra Leone. We thank our local organizing committee for their hard work, despite the challenges they encountered.
Inevitably, we have to bring up a very important issue that happened at this year’s Hajj. Sierra Leone got off lightly but many nations are mourning the death of hundreds of their citizens who went to perform the Hajj. The official explanation is that they died of heat waves. We don’t really dispute that, especially as the world appears to have accepted that explanation by the Saudi authorities but there are a few other questions that Saudi Arabia must answer for the benefit of the world.
This is not the first time people are dying during the Hajj observance but the scale of the deaths this year is such that there has to be an inquiry to get more explanation beyond the heat wave thing.
1. In these days of precision weather forecasting, did the Saudi authorities know that their country will experience such a punishing heat wave during the Hajj? If yes, how come so many people died?
2. Does the Saudi government have anything more to say or do beyond wrapping up bodies and sending them off to their home countries?
3. We have to be very careful here but is there a way to manage the Hajj process to drastically minimize the people crushing each other or dying of heat waves?
KENEMA COUNCILORS HAVE TO BE CAREFUL
Councilors of the Kenema District Council have written to parliament telling the oversight committee of local government that they will not “accept any core staff transfer to the Kenema City Council.” They say the six core staff listed for transfer have acquired knowledge in a kind of tax system that is bringing gains to the city so they MUST stay.
Here’s the last line in that “we are calling on your committee and the leadership of parliament that we won’t accept it today and would never give room for any staff transfer to Kenema City Council, who had no knowledge on the new system that had been introduced to KCC.”
We have not yet bothered to check the position of the law - that is to find out if they were acting lawfully or otherwise. We will do that later. For now we are at a loss regarding the tone of this letter. Why are they so angry?
We know that a wide ranging transfer of local government personnel took place recently and so far all other councils are quiet. Why is KCC taking a step like this to block the action of their supervising authority? They have not even left room for negotiation and compromise. If we may ask, what is so special about this new tax system in KCC that nobody can be trained to handle?
The KCC has now put itself in direct confrontation with their supervisors and the country is waiting to see who will blink first. If the KCC gets their way then we can expect the other local councils in Sierra Leone to choose to remain with the staff members they are comfortable with and that domino effect will eventually take us through all local councils and the supervising ministry will lose credibility. At that point we will ask for the minister to resign.
If KCC pulls back it will be a real shame that they didn’t think through the issue before writing to parliament. The game is on.
NJALA SU ELECTION ENDS WITH TEAR GAS IN THE AIR
We don’t think it’s strange anymore that an ordinary student union election could attract riot police and their usual tear gas. What happened at Njala, Bo campus about 48 hours ago was a disgrace and we are bold to call it that. Maybe we should congratulate Njala for going through the process with tear gas in the air. Their friends at the Mountain have still not elected an executive but have experienced tea gas twice plus live gun fire.
What used to be a contest of brains and swag has been reduced to street boys-like electioneering with its accompanying raw violence and massive damage to property- we are talking about college property and those of opposing campus politicians. It’s sad, very sad indeed.
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