WHEN PRINCIPAL MEETS ALPHA CONDE NEXT DOOR TODAY
Principal should be in the republic of Guinea by the time you read this. He is there to talk to president Alpha Conde about threats to the peace of both countries. Those threats come in the shape of the resumption of arguments over the ownership of the small border town of Yenga and the complete closure of the main border crossing at Kambia where a large group of migrant workers and goods pass between the two countries.
A Sierra Leone delegation recently met Conde in Guinea for preparatory talks, followed by a Guinean delegation that came to Freetown to do the same, now we have the summit between Principal and Conde. We wish the two leaders well but we might as well throw in a few words as ordinary people of Sierra Leone.
1. We want the two leaders to put a permanent mechanism in place either at MRU or bilateral level to deal with such issues quickly by observing early warning signs and taking the necessary steps to control the fiery rhetoric that escalates tension all the time.
2. Principal should drop this idea that somehow Kotor Juldeh is plotting to bring him down using his position in government or that he is sending mercenaries across the border. That is totally untrue. The republic of Guinea has always been a friendly country. Just because a few people originally from that country may have expressed a preference for the opposition should not be construed as Kotor Juldeh using them to cause trouble across the border. Not True!
3. Let the borders remain closed for the next few weeks while we put things in place all along that long border to stop the Ebola Virus Disease from returning to Sierra Leone through Guinea. On the eve of this meeting came news that FOUR people have died of Ebola in Guinea. Prevention is better than cure.
4. We call on our new, vastly experienced health minister to stand up and fight right now. We want to see him in the equivalent of what soldiers call FRONT EDGE BATTLE AREA. Youyi building is nice place to be but with the COVID -19 pandemic and possible Ebola outbreak, Austin Demby needs to be out in the field. Welcome to this new assignment sir.
5. The good people of Sierra Leone know how to fight Ebola with simple public health measures. Let’s mobilize ourselves once again and save the lives of the vulnerable.
TAKING A KNEE ON THE FIELD AND TWEETING RACIST NONSENSE
In the English Premier League, players take a knee before every match as a sign of their commitment to fight racial discrimination in world football. It all stems from the Black Lives Matter campaign in the US calling for justice following a growing number of incidents in which black people were shot and killed by police for trivial reasons at times while white people found in similar circumstances get a caution before being sent home.
We are writing about this because of the hypocrisy at the bottom of all the plenty campaign in the English Premier League. We note that sometimes action is taken against players when they say things the Football Association deems racist. A recent example was that of Edinson Cavani who was banned from playing for a few weeks for allegedly making a racist comment after scoring a fine goal for his team, Manchester United. He told the English FA that the word he used was acceptable in his country Uruguay but that was rejected.
Now, what is UK doing about those racist fans attacking black players daily for having a bad day on the pitch? Anthony Martial and Axel Tuanzebe received vicious racial blasting after Manchester United were defeated by bottom side Sheffield United. We are not particularly interested in how they contributed to the defeat or not because any team can beat any team in the EPL. While the FA is thinking about how to react to the incident, a West Bromwich Albion player was also racially attacked.
The affected teams always issue statements condemning the act but that is not all that is required. We want fans to be arrested, tried and jailed or at least fined and then face lengthy bans from all stadiums worldwide. It’s possible. We have to match rhetoric with action. Taking a knee before matches is fine but what happens when people associated with the game misbehave by racially abusing players? Only BLACK PLAYERS, in fact!
Look at the disgrace in Italy, where a man who should know better, Ibrahimovich of AC Milan racially abused Lukaku of Inter Milan. Does that make any sense? The Italian FA has banned both players for ONE Match without calling Ibrahimowich out for his racist comments. SHAME!
CONGRATULATIONS IG AMBROSE SOVULA ON YOUR WEDDING
Our IG has just taken a wife. Congratulations and may you enjoy the blessings that come with matrimony. We were not invited but we saw a lot of pictures of the event on social media. We would have loved to be there but we were not as lucky as the few who managed to catch the eye of our powerful IG to be invited. Well done sir. So just a few thoughts:
1. We received disturbing reports of how some of the guests you invited broke COVID - 19 restrictions, including the curfew and so caused ordinary people around to also take their chances. Is that true sir? We are putting our evidence together but we would want to hear from you in the same way you denied taking money from your staff to have a mighty wedding.
2. Where do you plan to visit on honeymoon sir and for how long? Those of us who are your friends are planning to book a hotel in Las Palmas for two weeks and cover all the expenses. It doesn’t matter whether we were invited or not because we are still friends. Please let us know if you are ready to take up our offer. We will inform the ACC so they know there’s no QUID PRO QUO.
3. By the way, talking about gifts, please send us a list of all those people who contributed something to the wedding for us to publish in the interest of full disclosure. You are the IG of Sierra Leone so we want to see if any Trojan Horses managed to bolt out of our ethical stables in this case.
4. We have obtained a video of you and your wife having a good dance. We are doing basic editing now with the intention of putting the final product up on our website for our millions of online readers. They should know that the IG is not just about arrests and detentions. IG Sovula in particular enjoys the good life. Long Live IG Sovula.
HILLSIDE BY-PASS ROAD IS AN EYESORE
We’ve been assured by people who should know that the Hillside By-pass road should be complete by the end of this year. The pace of the last mile area is such that we have reason to believe it will be no surprise if that vital link to the east of this city is open for business before Christmas 2021. As ordinary citizens, we want the best for this country so we wish those doing the road all the best. However, we want to call the attention of the authorities to the fact that the lower end of the road, leading to Dwarzark Junction is looking very poor. This very nice dual carriage way is beginning to look like a glorified Wilberforce Street.
We are calling attention to all the rotten vehicles abandoned in the parking area on both sides of the road. That space is provided so that drivers can drop off passengers or park their vehicles to attend to a quick business and leave. For more than a month now we’ve been counting all the rotten vehicles parked from the area just after Winners Chapel to Model School area. In fact people are now building ugly roadside structures to sell this and that. We have seen feeble attempts by the Sierra Leone Roads Authority to stop some of these constructions but we believe a big state institutions like that is being completely ignored by lawless people.
While all of this is happening the Mayor of the Sun is on social media telling the world of the MIRACLES she is performing in Freetown. We don’t know for sure but we believe her people are collecting market dues from the people selling in those illegal market stalls near Model School and Dwazark Junction. It’s very sad but things can only continue to go bad on that road.
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