THE NEXT TIME A POTENTIAL ADVERTS AGENT CALLS
So we’ve been reading in graphic detail of how our colleague, the journalist from the Times newspaper was actually arrested by CID operatives. We are not going into the whole case again because our association – The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists – is doing a good job with the issue and we endorse that.
On a lighter note however, we just want to talk to our colleagues to note certain things next time they receive calls from advertising agents or people claiming to want to place adverts in their papers.
1. As from now on tell all your advert agents and MDAs to send all advertising to your official email accounts.
2. Stop receiving adverts from memory sticks except from somebody you know personally. There’s a risk they may import a virus into your system or as it happened in the case of Sallieu T. Jalloh, they may actually be police officers using a cunning style to make an illegal arrest.
3. Never follow an unknown person at night to their vehicle for advertising material, in fact not at any time of the day. If they need your service they must operate in a transparent manner.
4. We should all now know that not all advertising requests are genuine. All papers in this country survive by advertising but as long as people have started using it as a bait to capture and detain us, probably we should start rejecting suspicious ones. Hahahahahahahah! Leh God ep we!
LEONE STARS AND THE INJURY TIME WAHALA
Already things are looking extremely shaky for our national football team, Leone Star after that lackluster draw with our brothers from the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. From their body language one could tell that they came to the west side of Africa expecting to be seriously walloped but the truth is when all things are considered, Leone Stars would have easily lost that match. We were among only a few media people accredited to cover the match so we saw it all.
Next, we are up against Benin in an away fixture. They are a completely different proposition compared to Lesotho. They have a handful of European players with good experience in the big leagues of that continent and they have done a lot on the African continent. This doesn’t mean we should be running scared. We have traveled to Cairo and given the Pharaohs an unbelievably good game. But judging from the performance of Leone Stars on Wednesday we have to be realistic and say we are only cautiously optimistic about a draw out there in Benin.
Let’s say some home truths to ourselves about our game against Lesotho and the future of Leone Stars.
1. The resignation of Kei Kamara from the national side on the eve of the match was a blow so heavy that the whole technical staff and players couldn’t recover from. We find the immediate trigger for that action a little ridiculous – the Musa Tombo question – but having listened to the MLS man on radio, it’s clear there is something very wrong with our coaching staff and the team.
2. Our players were not able to cope with the psychological pressure of playing in an empty stadium. Their performance was flat to the surprise of even our visitors from Lesotho.
3. We don’t know for how long the players trained together but it’s almost as if the players were in a football equivalent of the Tower of Babel. They came from all over the world – Vietnam, Denmark, France, Azerbaijan, Iceland and some other countries – and within two days were asked to play in our national team. There was no leader on the field. Otherwise in the dying seconds of that game all those stupid things that occurred with George Davies getting himself sent off unnecessarily and the goalkeeper’s puerile understanding of the rules of the game would have been dealt with easily.
4. Some of our players looked very tired after very hard work in countries where the football season has just ended. We don’t want to mention specific names but surely some of the key players on that pitch on Wednesday were not match fit.
5. We call on the technical staff to use our powerful local players particularly in the midfield and in goalkeeping. A very bad decision-making by the foreign-based goalkeeper caused the equalizer just few minutes before the final whistle.
WHEN IS HARVEST TIME AT PRINCIPAL’S FARM?
We are planning to go along with Principal to his farm in Tihun this Christmas. We are already working with some people to make that possible. We know Principal will be there this Christmas for his usual party with the children of his home village. We hope only a handful of the usual hangers on will make it because they are always there in large numbers either taking pictures or pretending to be explaining something for the benefit of social media. We know a lot of people will feel privileged to be seen around the president but please if you are a minister of something totally unrelated to agriculture, unless you can prove that Principal actually asked for you to be around, please stay at home with your family or go to your own farm. We have complained a lot about this attitude of ministers going after presidents all over the place and for a time we thought the New Direction would change things. But some ministers have failed to read our mood and the mood of the nation – in that area at least - they are beginning to look like the Tolongbo they succeeded.
We hope Principal will invite us to the harvest that we believe will take place any time from now. Having said that can Principal now tell us how many of his ministers have farms? Wasn’t that a condition for them continuing in office? Was that a factor in the last sackings? Do the ministers have farms? We want all of them to step forward and invite the media to visit their farms. Please don’t rent farms and put them forward as yours. We will investigate.
WHAT’S THE LATEST ON THOSE YELLOW CARD BOYS OF JENDEMA?
Hello ACC, where are those people you arrested from the border town of Jendema for allegedly extorting cash from two white guys recently? After the initial noise surrounding you sending in your people to arrest the health workers things have just gone quiet. Do you have a case against them? Let them have their day in court now or be set free if no evidence against them.
We don’t want to push too deep into this matter for legal reasons but we make bold to say that if Afro Boy sends his guys into our satellite hospitals and Ola During hospital in particular they will come back with a bag full of health workers caught demanding money from their patients for services fully covered by the state.
Let them also go along the road to Guinea and see what they will get. The people are tired – there are all types of corruption. Afro Boy has done very well with the really big guys who have been stealing from their grandchildren, now let him chase the little crooks. We say so because the little crooks have daily contact with the people and that gives their own brand of corruption a very sharp edge that can also kill the people. Long live the ACC!
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