TWITTER, the Sierra Leone Gossip (16/08/23)

IN SEARCH OF THE KNEE ON THE NECK OF TOLONGBO

Joseph Fitzgerald Kamara or JFK tweeted something very interesting a few days back. We will not reproduce verbatim here but he was basically saying something about the protracted and seemingly failing boycott that the opposition APC has been trying to hold on to as a way of forcing the government to meet a number of demands they put forward after losing the election in June. Again we will not run through those demands again but even JFK who represents the party in its many legal troubles is now beginning to express doubts about this total boycott of governance. He talks about “priorities misplaced; ultimatums unenforceable, indecisiveness…”

JFK suggests that something has to be done quickly to rescue the party from claws of death and conjured the image of Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd until he died in the USA. He says “a knee is on the neck of APC”. So we’ve spent the last few days looking for that knee that is on the neck of Tolongbo. We are not sure which one is correct but here are a few knees to consider:

1. King Messi. His knee has been on the neck of Tolongbo since he became leader. He has maintained that hold so much that all Tolongbo people cannot now imagine life without the king. No Tolongbo member, including JFK can convince any Sierra Leonean otherwise. So we call on JFK to stop tweeting from the comfort of his study and, as they say, do the needful.

2. The other knee is this sense of entitlement that runs through the veins of Tolongbo. They can’t stand to see other groups in power. They demonstrate that in their rhetoric and actions on the ground. Many people are easily turned off by that.

3. Tolongbo also allows this knee called disregard for the people of the southern and Eastern regions of the country to remain on their neck. This idea that dominating just two regions of the country is enough to win an election in this country is flawed.

4. Refusing to totally and publicly condemn the use of foul language and violence in the service of politics is a huge knee on the neck of Tolongbo.

5. When people who can do something prefer sniping from the sidelines and helping to sustain obvious lies just to keep hold of supporters: that can only mean a keen has been knowingly placed on the neck of Tolongbo.

BANKS IN SALONE MUST PAY OUT CORRECT MONEY ALWAYS

We saw a lengthy statement from Rokel Commercial Bank the other day taking issue with a video on social media accusing them of not paying out correct money to their customers. They even threatened legal action against the people in the video. We understand that action because in the kind of business they do, it’s always good for customers to believe they are not being cheated. We don’t know how far that statement went to calm some customer nerves.

We don’t have any official accounts at RCB but we have experienced what customers are complaining about in the TWO banks we do business with and it’s getting serious. We will not name those banks for now because we want to see how things go after the issue has once again been forced into the agenda of our national conversation.

The banks have always told people to count all withdrawals in front of the Teller before leaving the bank. That’s easier said than done. It’s an easy way to push the blame back to the customer and we understand why they are doing that. We are living in a country where people like taking large amounts of bank notes around like Floyd Mayweather Jr. Imagine somebody withdrawing ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND New Leones and counting all of that with a long queue of other customers behind. Is that what our banks want to put us through?

We are not sure if there is a deliberate conspiracy in these banks to steal from their customers but they have to find a better answer to complaints from the public about people losing cash even those wrapped up in plastic from their institutions. These are issues they should quietly investigate after fighting the public relations battle. Our observation continues.

MBS AND HIS SPORT-WASHING IN SAUDI ARABIA

By the time this football transfer window closes in Europe, dozens of big names in world football would have entered the Saudi league purely for the money. There is no other reason why people are flocking that country. The money they are paying those boys is pornographic but they know what they are doing. The players are busy collecting money while King Salman is laundering the human rights image of that country.

Who knows, the cash may well be coming from our countries because apart from the TV rights that we pay, Saudi Arabia is busy killing us with high oil prices and not even the mighty United States can stop them. So they are reducing oil production quota and forcing the price up. They take billions from the world and pay a few thousands to two dozen or so big names in world football, and all the rest of us can do is jump on the streets of our capitals to attack our governments. They are not blameless but we have to be very careful when we complain about the price of petroleum products in particular.

King Salman or MBS as they call him has a lot of cleaning up to do. He has that disgraceful war in Yemen to account for – all those innocent lives lost so far because he chose to take his country into a war he could have avoided and there is that murder most foul inside his country’s embassy in Turkey. Investigations have fingered him personally over the killing of Jamal Kashoggi. The world complained and complained but because it’s that oil rich kingdom, the powerful guys are doing everything so that we will all forget about Kashoggi. If MBS was an African president, they would have provided him a room in The Hague in a blaze of publicity with one rights group after another pontificating about this and that.