THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SONGO-MOYAMBA ROAD
Soon we will be driving on a very good road from Songo Junction to the MABANG BRIDGE. Thanks to the government of Sierra Leone and the European Union. We don’t know the intricacies of how the EU funds those projects but we were told that the funding was initially earmarked for the MABANG BRIDGE but they probably saved some of the cash from the bridge project to be able to do the stretch of road leading to the bridge from the Freetown Masiaka Highway.
The government of Sierra Leone has no choice now but to put up the cash to do the rest of the road from MABANG BRIDGE to the township of Moyamba. Let’s spend our own money to pave that road from the bridge to Moyamba town. In fact, why didn’t the government get the EU to do the other side of the road with the savings from the bridge project? We should now begin to pave roads starting from the villages, completing in urban centers. Let’s reverse the situation and see what difference it makes.
When that road is completed it will achieve the following
1. Open up Moyamba to the rest of the country in ways never witnessed before. People from all over the country will easily access the rich fishing grounds of Shenge.
2. Travel time to the southern headquarter town of Bo from Freetown will be cut by at least THIRTY MINUTES.
3. All vehicles heading south will easily avoid the third rip off point we call toll gate and those hungry police officers hanging around Mamamah general area.
4. Suddenly, sleepy old Moyamba town will spring to life as the people there frequently interact with the rest of the country through trade in particular. The local economy will get a major boost. We are looking forward to action from the government.
A SECURITY UPDATE TO GET SIERRA LEONEANS THINKING
As soon as we saw the flyer announcing a security update from C. Bah, we knew something big was just around the corner. The fact that C. Bah was going to deliver this update himself in the prime news of the state broadcaster, absolutely raised the stakes even higher. When the update finally came, it really lived up to its billing.
In this job we are trained to treat information – especially that coming from the government with some amount of suspicion. We are doing that right now especially given the seriousness of what C. Bah told the nation. We have a lot of questions to ask, so we urge the minister to call a news conference immediately to put some flesh on the bones of this SECURITY UPDATE.
For example, why didn’t the update come from the police? Our other question would touch on the people now detained, their motives, how they managed to bring the dangerous materials into Sierra Leone, do they have partners at our ports of entry and what were they trying to blow up with those cylinders. With those detonators allegedly discovered, are we entering a situation where roadside bombs would hit and destroy high value targets like any ISIS operation?
We congratulate our security forces for tracking down and arresting people allegedly trying to disturb our peace but what is really going on? Why is all this happening in Sierra Leone?
Arresting these people and their dangerous weapons of mass destruction, including drugs worth nearly ONE HUNDRED MILLION US DOLLARS is good but what does the government think the BIG PICTURE is? It’s really not a stretch to imagine that we will wake up one morning to news of a big target being destroyed somewhere in Sierra Leone with a roadside bomb.
QUEEN FATIMA STEPS INTO THE SLPP LEADERSHIP DEBATE
Over the last SIX years the Queen has developed a reputation of somebody who is not afraid of speaking up on issues she feels strongly about. She has faced criticism many times but gives as much as she gets from time to time.
She’s been in the US in the last few days attending a program organized by the SLPP people in Dallas, Texas and she apparently waited for that even to enter the growing debate about who will succeed her husband at the end of his second term in 2028. For weeks and months now, social media has been awash with names of SLPP people stepping forward, some already have active working groups and active ground operations around the country. It’s as if this was now a full blown campaign ahead of the SLPP delegates’ conference to select a leader.
Actually, the Queen is not the first person to say the things she said at that meeting but coming from her was surely going to get people talking even more. We just listened to a supporter of one of the potential aspirants, essentially asking the Queen to mind her business.
1. The Queen told the SLPP faithful out there not to get carried away this early and urged them to concentrate on the BIG 5 agenda for now. Does she really think those people in the room were totally on her side?
2. We ask because we know that one of those building teams on the ground now actually paid some cash towards organizing the program she attended.
3. Was that why she encouraged them to take any money offered to them by potential aspirants but refuse to be swayed by the size of the wallet?
4. Has the queen not shattered all of what some people have been saying in small communities around this country? Well, we’ve heard that the Queen has endorsed some of the aspirants. Next time they turn up in our community we will play that Dallas speech to them.
ARE WE REALLY BEING TOLD THE LUNGI GIRL CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD?
We’ve been following a story on social media about a girl in Lungi that is holding herself out as somebody who is coming from the dead. It’s the sort of story that gets many people talking on social media. As far as we are concerned, this is just the kind of story that people tell over the fireplace in rural Sierra Leone after a heavy meal in the immediate days following a good harvest. We don’t believe a thing the girl said.
Now there are claims coming from other parts of the country from people telling us that they have also gone through the same experience.
All we can say now to our social media bloggers is that they should allow us to deal with serious matters otherwise they should create special accounts for those kinds of bizarre stories and never attempt to pass them off as real issues. We have very important matters to deal with in this country. Please!
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