ALHASSAN OUATTARA IS GOING BUT ALPHA CONDE IS PLOTTING FOR MORE TIME
Our neighbor on the northern flank may now well and truly be sleepwalking into the kind of political strife that they may not be able to contain. It’s very serious and the reticence of those responsible for world and regional peace is not helping the situation at all.
If Professor Alpha Conde looks over his shoulder to the southeast of his country he will see a country called Ivory Coast – it’s much more prosperous and organized than Guinea. He will also find out that the leader in that country has just announced that he will step down at the end of his second term to make way for a new politician to take over. Meanwhile Professor Conde is trying all the tricks in the books to stay in office beyond the terms under which he was controversially elected. What is really wrong with this continent?
From this little corner of Great Africa, we can only wish our relatives in Guinea all the best because it would appear as if Professor Conde is pressing on and would care less what anybody thinks including his own people. He feels zero pressure that his neighbor Alhassan Ouatara is leaving or that even Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi has realized that there will be no more Paul Biyas in Africa.
We are entering a very difficult period in the life of that country and we wish to note certain things.
1. The history of West Africa and the MRU basin in particular is dominated by political conflict and war. Guinea lost many lives helping Liberia and Sierra Leone end wars in the 90s, they know what happened in both countries so that should NEVER allow any conflict within their borders.
2. As far as we are concerned the recent attack on the Guinean embassy in Freetown is an extension of their internal politics. We must help them as much as possible but let’s stay out of their politics.
3. Guinea does a lot of its trade with its neighbors. The volume is huge. Any disruption of the peace there will directly impact our countries in terms of the availability of basic consumer items. This MUST not happen.
4. Sierra Leone should not wake up one morning to see half a million Guinean refugees pouring into our country. We are not Turkey. It will be almost impossible to cope with such inflow.
5. The safety of the region will be compromised. There are freelancers from all the conflicts in West Africa hanging around looking to make quick money. We don’t want to re-activate them. Please!
PRINCIPAL TAKES THE LEAD IN BID TO STOP THE CORONA VIRUS
Well done Principal for taking time out to check up on our readiness to fight and defeat COVID 19 if it ever steps across our borders. We see on out TV screens daily how much more advanced societies have been severely ravaged by this virus. The whole of Italy is in lockdown like we experienced in this country during our war with Ebola - major airports are empty as thousands of flights are cancelled, and businesses are struggling. Stock markets have gone crazy and to throw matters into more uncertainty an oil price war has broken out between Russia and Saudi Arabia. These are challenging times for our world.
We saw video clips on social media of Principal rallying health workers and security personnel, preparing them for battle should it become necessary. What we don’t have access to is Principal’s personal conclusions on what he saw and whether the system was robust enough to withstand the pressure of dealing with a few hundred cases. We appreciate what the health sector is doing at the moment and we wish them all the best but for the president to have gone on the ground himself, suggests that there were lingering doubts as to whether Sierra Leone was ready to fight the COVID 19 as claimed by Kotor Alpha.
Frankly, this is a battle we can win easily by simply going back to our trenches as in the Ebola days. It’s as easy as that.
1. First of all we have to stop confusing people with all this nonsense about what doctors are supposed to be saying in Japan or North Korean and pay attention to what our own medical people are saying. Some people can see through obvious lies but the vast majority of our people are being confused.
2. Some of our people who are praying for some disaster to befall this country in the hope of making some kind of political capital out of it should be ashamed of themselves. They are so desperate that they have the temerity to go on social media and say such contemptible rubbish like the Principal being diagnosed with COVID 19. This is just wrong!
3. It is one thing to address health workers and attempt to inspire them in case it becomes inevitable that COVID 19 will attack Sierra Leone, it is something else to give them all what they need to go into battle. We don’t want to revisit issues left over from the Ebola war but they are still very much with us. We must avoid that this time.
NOT BAD SO FAR SLRA BUT COMPLETE THE FBC ROAD NOW
Well done SLRA for resuming the job of patching up the road to FBC. Surely that job is not the best but at least some potholes are gone. We don’t know what will happen to those potholes in the middle of the rains.
To be honest with ourselves King Messi made a very terrible mistake by cutting out the college campus from Rue De La Paix that runs from IMATT junction to Kortright and the stretch from Model to White Water when that road was being done. Like all the people in that community, we were given no reason for that decision and we can’t find any to explain why King Messi treated
The pressure on the FBC road is such that any cosmetic rehabilitation will be totally inadequate. The whole stretch should be resurfaced immediately. What’s the point having such a nice campus when the road leading there is in such a poor shape?
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY AND THEIR MISERY HOME ON PADEMBA ROAD
Are the political leaders in this country telling us they’ve not seen the misery at that camp for people with disability near Pademba road prison yard? When we say politicians we mean both those in government and those in the opposition. Maybe they’ve not seen the place because they are always in their nice well-air conditioned SUVs doing whatsapp, so let’s help.
Coming into the center of town from the west end of Freetown where almost all of the big people live, this misery camp is located just after the walls of the prison to your right. We urge those dealing with disability issues to visit that place and see the human misery we are talking about.
When the occupants moved in there in the days of King Messi, there was public outcry because people knew what the place would become before long. An attempt to move them on was thwarted by a government minister who thought it was politically unwise to do that. He told a radio station that he had the support of King Messi. Now we call on the New Direction to do something NEW.
1. Move those people out of that misery camp and re-settle them in a reasonably dignified place immediately. In fact let them go home and live normal lives like any other citizen of Sierra Leone.
2. No need to create a colony of people with disability. They are normal people with families like all of us. Help them re-integrate with their people and start small businesses. Where were they before they moved to that place?
3. Demolish that building which was gutted by fire in the days of the NPRC and much more recently and build something decent on that land which is a property of the Ministry of Works.
4. It will not be easy to do what we are asking for now because the occupants will resist having settled down all these years and some hypocrites will back them purely for political reasons but this where political will is required.
5. That done, all the raw sewerage flowing down to the main Pademba road – Campbell street junction will be gone. Let’s end that disgrace.
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