JFK IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK ABOUT OUR CEMETERIES
Former ACC boss who also served as the nation’s Attorney General Brother Josie is enjoying his time in the spotlight these days. He is either in the courts defending his Tolongbo comrades or at some police station sitting in on long and boring interviews and facilitating bail. Good work Brother.
In the last few days however, Brother Josie raised the issue of criminals raiding and stealing from our dead relatives. Apparently the graveyard thieves arrived in a little corner of one cemetery and stole the metal bars erected around the grave space of our brother’s late mother. Very sad indeed! Sorry about that brother. In trying to understand why somebody of sound mind would go into a graveyard and steal from the dead, Brother Josie suggested that the biting economic realities of today may well have driven people looking for pennies to survive and enter graveyards. That may well be the truth.
From our little corner we want to say a thing about this:
1. What JFK complained about has been going on for years now. People have complained on twitter, Facebook and on SLBC television. And yes, we can attribute that to tough economic conditions going back more than TEN years when our brother was definitely in a position to do something about it.
2. We know that not just guard rails which only the rich can afford but coffins are also being stolen fairly regularly and all of this is happening under the noses of groups of mainly boys calling themselves FRIENDs of the DEAD who live in our cemeteries in Freetown. Brother Josie could have done something about them all those years ago.
3. We also note that at least since the return of democracy, Tolongbo has been in charge of the Freetown City Council. The FCC runs those cemeteries. Even as we write Tolongbo is in charge. What are they doing about those thieves who cannot allow our people to REST in PEACE? For now we will not push into what the cemeteries actually look like. That’s for subsequent editions.
4. We thank Brother Josie for bringing this issue up again. We hope Mayor Kemokai will spend some of her recently won ONE MILLION US DOLLARS to secure our cemeteries.
SLRSA MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT KING HERMAN ROAD
In the last month or so we have reported two road crashes involving heavy duty vehicles along King Herman road. On both occasions no lives were lost but cars and other properties were damaged. We are bold to say that only God acted directly to save lives along that road. We are particularly concerned about the lower half of King Herman road just after the former Presidential Lodge.
Road crashes happen all the time but what is happening along that road is something SLRSA can deal with. The explanation for the recent incidents is that both vehicles experienced brake failure as they descended the road close to the satellite clinic. Again this can actually occur on any road. It may be prevented by making sure the brakes are always good but let’s agree that things can actually go wrong sometimes.
Here’s what SLRSA can do:
1. Stop the lower part of King Herman road being used as a car wash center. Attempts have been made in the past to move those boys on from that place but they have now returned in force and are definitely interfering with the normal flow of traffic. When the brakes of heavy duty trucks fail, the vehicles in the car wash and the occupants become sitting ducks waiting to be injured.
2. There’s a garage just after the China Friendship House fence that does some of their repair work on that section of the road. If they can’t hold their vehicles inside their workshop they should be told another place. They know what they are doing is wrong and they should be allowed to break the law without consequences.
3. SLRSA should also move the vulcanizers away from that place. They are blocking normal traffic flow and causing hell. We believe SLRSA will ignore us on these points but we warn them not to allow us to come back and say WE TOLD YOU SO.
MODERATE PROGRESS ON PIKE STREET BRIDGE
So we have something a bit positive to report about that very important bridge at Pike Street. The point is with Pademba Road being treated as a high security zone many people avoid that area after 7pm. One of the alternative routes to enter the west of the city from the central area is Pike Street and so the sheer volume of traffic on that road during the evening rush hour is bound to take its toll on the quality of the road. As far as we are concerned, that's how the bridge developed those dangerous potholes we’ve been complaining about for three weeks or so.
Last week we saw young people using cement and some other materials to close those potholes along the full stretch of Pike street and the bridge itself. It’s not the best job in the world but Amara Kanneh has signaled his intention to make driving on that street and across the bridge in particular, less painful. We thank him for that. We must report however that there’s a bit more work to do just after the quarter belonging to the correctional services. It would appear as if the cement finished just when the workers approached another crucial section of the street leading to Jomo Kenyatta Road. We hope our friend Amara Kanneh will complete the job immediately. Well done so far.
CRYING ABOUT CONDITIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST BUT STILL GOING THERE
These days a lot of pictures and audio messages appear on our phones, almost all of them completely unsolicited. People just have this habit of forwarding things without asking questions. Even when people complain by private conversation, they soon forget and push more.
In the last two weeks we have seen pictures of Sierra Leone allegedly kept in semi-detention centers in the UAE for God knows what. All the audios those detained are sending over have never clearly explained why they were rounded up. Their intention has always been to whip up sentiments on this side to bring some pressure to bear on authorities to do what we really don’t know considering the laws in those other countries.
We clearly want to know why those Sierra Leoneans are detained and our embassy in the UAE has some responsibility to look into this issue. Are they detained for overstaying their visas or for criminal activities? We know a lot of Sierra Leoneans who travel frequently to that part of the world for business and pleasure and have never had to deal with the police. So what’s happening to those now complaining on social media?
Among those people are our brothers and sisters who have spent a fortune to travel to those places in the belief that the streets are paved with GOLD. They could have used that money to set themselves up in business in this country but traveling abroad is their thing. Those are the same people who, even without being asked, are quick to run this country down. We hear their audios daily.
Our young people are now leaving in droves for Turkey and Cyprus to try their luck in entering Western Europe via Greece with all the dangers involved in that. We wish them well but they are making these journeys with their eyes wide open to all the uncertainties. So please don’t pack our phones with your messages. Send them to the government through our embassy.
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