INSEARCH OF THE LEONE: BSL PLEASE COME ALONG
The professor from GREELEY has been wobbling a bit trying to explain why the local currency is in short supply and the commercial banks have now taken over the job of deciding how much money we spend per day, week or month. This is not the first time we’re witnessing this kind of thing but since the NEW DIRECTION opened up under Principal with the promise of a complete break from the past, this is the last thing we expected to happen. But we are here now.
Professor has been on radio explaining what he thinks went wrong with the money and what he intends to do so that we don’t turn up at banks only to be told how much money we can withdraw. He says a plane load of new notes will arrive in two installments between now and the middle of February 2021. That’s good to hear but for now the question remains: WHERE’S ALL THE MONEY GONE?
Let’s make something very clear before we proceed from this point: We are not economists, we have never worked in any financial institution so all what we are about to say could be very silly – well, so silly that the professor from GREELEY can only get a loud laugh and continue watching the second Trump impeachment process on CNN. All we really want is for him and those in charge of our finances to read through quickly. They say even the dull and ignorant have a story to tell.
1. The government recently paid big money to local contractors. This is genuine domestic debt rolled over from the Tolongbo regime. Those contractors simply withdrew the cash and took them home. Some are very scared that with the COI recommendations about to be implemented their money will be confiscated if they deposited it in bank accounts. The main commercial banks have a record of some unusual withdrawals. We urge Professor Bank Governor to please ask the banks for the details.
2. A few guys operating unregistered foreign currency exchange businesses mainly in the Central Business District have billions of Leones in their stores. In fact certain bank officials go to them to get money when they want to make big payments to an important client. IG Sovula’s boys know where these people are. Call Sovula in right now and you will be able to arrest those so-called business people.
3. If you don’t mind sir please allow some guys on social media to put out a notice saying you intend to change the colors of our currency and re-size those notes. They will give a one-month grace period to all people in Sierra Leone to return the old notes and collect new ones. Within a few hours all hidden notes will come pouring in. Once these people enter the banking halls, you will issue a statement describing the public notice as FAKE. By that time there will be big cash in the banks.
YOWERI TO CONTINUE DRINKING WINE AT STATE HOUSE
Ugandan musician and politician Bobbi Wine has absolutely no chance of beating Yoweri Museveni. We hear, see and read a lot about Bobbi Wine particularly as he battles with the police and military – the most powerful tools in the hands of the former rebel commander turned president since he came to State House in Kampala THIRTY FIVE YEARS AGO.
Museveni has fought off many opponents over the years. In fact some were more powerful than Bobbi Wine. We understand why many people like Bobbi. He is a pop star, he is young and has powerful media organizations covering his every move but he knows deep down that removing the old man takes more than signing and always complaining about police brutality.
Now, you will accuse us of sounding hopeless when it’s very possible that Bobbi Wine maybe leading a large constituency of silent voters trying to defeat Yoweri. That may well be the case and we are prepared to return to this column when that happens to apologize and ask for forgiveness. For now it is for the following reasons that we think Yoweri will not be defeated in this election.
1. The playing field has NEVER been level in that country during electioneering. Opposition politicians are not allowed to campaign freely; they are frequently arrested on all kinds of fake charges, state media outlets unashamedly support the government.
2. The security forces are fiercely loyal to their former bush commander who ensures the main commanders get what they want. They are corrupt and nobody dares question them. They violate human rights at will. As long as the old man remains in State House, it shall be well with them.
3. The international community that normally helps opposition parties assert their rights is in bed with Museveni. He is doing a lot for them in the Sudan, troubled Somalia and the Great Lakes. They will not risk that established friendship for Bobbi Wine who hasn’t said much about what he stands for apart from telling us Museveni is old and has been in power since Tony Blair was in University. President Paul Biya is still in power in Cameroon because the big guys want him around to do their job?
QUEEN JOHANSEN CANNOT WIN ANY FAIR SLFA ELECTION
Deep inside Queen Johansen knows we are saying the truth when we argue that she can NEVER win a free and fair contest in the SLFA and this can only be explained by the way she entered office and what she has done in that office since 2013.
Queen Johansen was totally unprepared for that office. She was hurriedly drafted in by an SLFA secretariat that was scared of a certain Rodney Michael presidency because the key people in the secretariat thought they would lose their jobs. That’s all.
Prior to her 11th hour recruitment for the contest the queen had gone on radio praising the administrative skills of Rodney Michael and pledging to work with him for the development of the game. The queen was doing well with youth football but she was too far removed from the notoriously mercurial and shamelessly corrupt delegates.
Since coming to office following that flawed electoral process in 2013, queen Johansen has done nothing substantial to win the hearts of those who opposed her. She then went on to miss many golden opportunities to unite the football family with the following actions:
1. She teamed up with Pope John Paul who was Minister of Sport at the time to baselessly accuse several football stakeholders of match-fixing, tarnishing their reputations on the national and global stage. She sustained those allegations long after the Pope was sacked from the ministry. We will not accept any suggestion she had no hands in that.
2. She went to parliament and told the nation’s representative that she merely used those allegations to advance her bid to stay in power because she had NO EVIDENCE. Since then she has REFUSED to apologize to those families that she humiliated with that FAKE match-fixing allegation. The situation remains the same even after her ETHICS COMMITTEE cleared Rodney Michael and others.
3. She encouraged FIFA to ban Sierra Leone simply to apply pressure on the people to drop corruption charges against her. She would be cleared by the High Court but not before embarrassing the New Direction government and the good people of Sierra Leone. She has always believed that FIFA was God on earth. She even declared the league that was paid for with the people’s taxes to the tune of THREE POINT FIVE BILLION LEONES as NULL and VOID. In the meantime, she can’t get a proper league to run. That’s a fact.
4. At the end of her controversial mandate and with no elective congress in sight, queen Johansen missed the opportunity to form a broad-based administration at the SLFA representing all sides to make her work easy. In fact she packed the place with her hit men and alienated even her allies who dared to tell her she must open up and work with her opponents for the good of the game.
5. Queen Johansen worked very hard to divide and rule sports writers. She first declared that she didn’t need LOCAL journalists to become great and then selected a few of the guys, appointing them into overlapping positions at the SLFA and giving others all privileges including entry passes to major SLFA events to a so-called TEXTERS group and kicked out certified delegates.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online
