PRINCIPAL KILLS THE DEATH PENALTY WITH HIS PEN
What a difference THREE years make. The picture below shows the Internal Affairs Minister in King Messi’s government, Palo Rossi the great believer in the death penalty keeping watch as prison officers cleaned and tested the gallows at the central jail in Freetown. He left many people wondering why he had to personally supervise the work. At that time he was involved in running battles with young okada riders in the Central Business District of Freetown.
Palo Rossi was keen to create this tough guy image for himself in the media and that’s one way he did it. The reality was that we were dealing with a weak man who moved around with a gun even in Freetown just a few short weeks after losing power. Why did he have to prepare the chamber of death just to convince okada riders about his determination to prevent them from operating in the CBD of Freetown?
Three years on the death penalty is dead. Even after parliament struck the law down, Palo Rossi gave an interview to a local newspaper advocating for the death penalty to be retained for certain crimes. Here was this man again hanging on a thin thread against even his own party MPs just to keep the death penalty. He may not be alone in this but he is perhaps the only one with huge political ambition publicly fighting to keep the death penalty. We can’t understand this. The WORLD hates the death penalty.
Anyway, let’s end with this powerful line from Principal at the signing ceremony:
The state has absolutely no obligation to undertake judicial killings of its own citizens in order to instill law and order or for political gain. The all-too-familiar phrase of “hanging persons by the neck until they die” or “tying persons at a stake and gunning them down” is cruel, inhumane, and degrading. We are a civilized nation. We should not; we shall not; and we will never again execute any persons in this sovereign republic (Brigadier JM Bio, 2021).
We agree.
SALONE OFF THE UK RED LIST - READY, STEADY, GO
We are finally off the UK travel RED LIST today. It means that Sierra Leoneans can now take off from Lungi, fly into London, go through the basic test procedures at the airport and go straight home without being required to undergo 10 days of quarantine at their own expense in hotels selected by the government, as long as they are now fully vaccinated. We were put on that red list just as we were beginning to turn the tide against the THIRD WAVE of coronavirus and understandably many Sierra Leoneans were outraged. They thought the classification was wrong, maybe punitive. We couldn’t understand why Sierra Leone’s main Western ally would want to put so much pressure on an economy that was struggling even before COVID-19 by essentially blocking this vital link with Europe and America.
We want to move on now from all that because many Sierra Leoneans are putting their papers together as we write this to file visa applications. They have missed that great country in the last few months.
During the red list period, we are told that Sierra Leoneans traveled to Guinea or Liberia on emergency travel documents from where they flew to London because our neighbors were never put on that list. So they managed to enter the UK by just paying a little bit more money and taking a little risk. No need now to smuggle oneself into the UK. Get fully vaccinated in Freetown and enjoy your holiday in London in peace. Take care.
FEMALE U-20 TEAM TREATED BADLY BY SLFA OFFICIALS
We expect those managing our female under-20 football team and that includes the coach and a lady called Musu Pele to resign immediately. The lady on the Executive Committee of the SLFA should also consider leaving. We have not called for her immediate resignation because she was elected to the position while the other two ladies are appointees who should know that they have exposed their incompetence and are clearly now obstacles in the way of our team. They should resign or be sacked. Our elected female executive member will surely take the political consequences of her action
The way these people reacted to a small protest action by their players is a real disgrace that the good people of Sierra Leone should NEVER accept. We have listened to all the audio leaked from their whatsApp group and we can only say it’s scandalous.
It’s very clear that these people have a very low estimation of those young people we put in their care in that national team because we don’t need to tell them when dealing with people with genuine grievances an administrator should never start by applying the stick. What’s wrong with the ladies showing their displeasure at not being paid their money by staying out of training for a day? They are young people but they have issues to attend to. In fact even at this stage some of them have a few mouths to feed. So holding on to their allowances is another way of starving their dependents.
The SLFA committee woman had this long explanation about revenue streams and processing bank payments in the hope that the young ladies would understand and keep quiet. Maybe the message was good but it was delivered at the wrong time and place and with the wrong temperament using the wrong words. She accused the players of being UNGRATEFUL. Who should they be grateful to, the SLFA or the good people of Sierra Leone? And what was all that threat about ending their playing career about?
At the very east Isha Johansen’s hostage at the SLFA should investigate this. Otherwise, let’s just sack the technical staff and recruit people who would treat our players as AMBASSADORS not as domestic slaves.
MAYOR HAS NEVER SEEN THE BEGGARS AT THE COTTON TREE
We drive by the Cotton Tree daily and we have observed that the number of beggars near the historic Tree and those spreading up State Avenue leading to State House continues to grow with every passing day. It’s one of those sights we hate to see particularly in that part of Freetown. There are many reasons why we have so many of them in that area and in such locations across our major cities. It could well be that economic conditions have forced many people to take such desperate measures to survive or among those people is a hardcore who believe begging on the streets is easier than using their strength and talent to put food on their table.
We know that when Mayor Kemokai came to office she started a program aimed at getting the mostly disabled beggars off the streets and for a time their number was drastically reduced. Well, now we think it was a false situation because the numbers we see in this area alone tells a very bad story about how our Mayor is running this place. We’ve been looking around for information about that nine day wonder program that cleared our city center of beggars and it would appear as if nobody wants to talk to us about it. In this job we do, we are used to that kind of thing and we know why officials behave that way.
That cannot stop us making the following points anyway:
1. We just can’t have so many Sierra Leoneans coming to that place daily to beg. It’s a shame. We have to find a way to reduce that number by some carefully designed social intervention as a first step. And the FCC should lead this effort again but they should first tell the people of this country what happened to their earlier effort.
2. We have to be honest some of those people would still go to the Cotton Tree daily even if they were given accommodation at Hill Station with hot meals and small pocket money. We should be firm with that small number and make it legally impossible for them to continue begging on the streets.
3. We urge Mayor Kemokai to please always remember to send people to that Cotton Tree area daily to clean after our beggar compatriots. Many parts of this city are in a mess but let’s keep the Cotton Tree general area very CLEAN. Thank You Mayor Kemokai.
Copyright © Politico Online 11/10/21