HAS CJ BABATUNDE RETAKEN BELLAIR PARK NOW?
Weeks after CJ Babatunde turned up with Turad Senessi to begin the process of returning Bellair Park to its original state or at least bring it to a better shape; we haven’t seen or heard anything from that front. These days the judiciary talks a lot about their activities so why the sudden quietness of the Bellair Park questions?
We saw social media photos of minister Turad, the police and the big man in the judiciary taking a walk in the area and talking to obvious squatters. The quarters housing our judges are in extremely poor shape and the squatters have crept up on them over the last FIFTEEN years. Today, Bellair Park is not fit to be the home of our judges. They are not even safe in such a place.
Minister Turad is a thoughtful, incorruptible guy and he means what he says. We believe he didn’t go to that place for a photo-op. He means business. We however want him to proceed slowly with this and make sure his own ground at Youyi building is clean. Here’s why:
1. He has to determine the authenticity of the documents that the squatters are definitely going to present to him to prove they acquired those properties legally. Some of those documents are signed by some of his officials. We don’t care whether they might have retired or not.
2. It is important not to hurriedly displace so many people at the height of what is clearly a vicious rainy season. There are other ways of getting people to quit government property. They’ve been squatting there for years.
3. Those mighty buildings that are clearly within the boundary of Bellair Park should be allowed to remain standing only if they pay annual lease fees to the judiciary at commercial rates. Or the government should buy them but again we understand some judges own those properties.
4. Bellair Park should immediately cease to be a thoroughfare for the huge informal community in the neighborhood. That would send a clear message about the seriousness of the government on this issue.
5. Let’s start with major repairs right now on the quarters still standing in that place.
OUR LOCAL CHAMPION AND HIS BREAD KNIFE SOLUTION
Our local champion is back on familiar terrain and he is up to his usual things almost immediately. However, this time he is up against a huge obstacle – the SLFA has banned him from playing football in any mini-league that is affiliated to them. No mini-league organizer wants to fight the SLFA so they are strictly enforcing the ban. That means our local champion is not able to do what he likes best in Freetown.
When he turned up to play for Barbing Shop FC in the POTAFA league, he was told not to bring his WAHALA to the league. He just couldn’t understand why the SLFA is able to exercise so much power over footballers. He complained and complained but the young league organizers stood firm. The trouble now is our local champion is not the kind of guy that follows conventional patterns of solving problems and we have a fair idea how he will approach this. Here we go:
1. Forget about this social media talk about him having a fight with HAWA TOMBO. It was all part of the strategy to get out of the debacle in Libya. His first weapon against the SLFA ban is to deploy Hawa. She will soon be on tik tok accusing the SLFA of having a grudge against the local champion. She might even suggest that the SLFA boss has been watching her with what Sierra Leoneans call CORNER YAI. Didn’t she do that to her husband’s former local club?
2. His next card will be to appeal to some of the same hypocrites in this game who will soon attack the SLFA for being HARSH on our Local Champion. For those hypocrites Sierra Leoneans should spend half the nation’s budget to make TOMBO good. They don’t care how many times he misbehaves on national assignments. They are the same hypocrites who will gladly call for the sacking of a civil servant for being late for work. For the Musa who scores those occasional goals is a SACRED COW.
3. If the SLFA ban remains in place after all that, the local champion will play his last card. He will go on social media with a bread knife in his hand and threaten to kill himself unless the ban is lifted. At that point the SLFA will grant him temporary release to play while they investigate the issues around him. Is that not what happened in Libya? Long live the local champion.
MAYBE IT’S TIME FOR RUSSIA AND UKRAINE TO START TALKING
The world is at a point now in the war between Russia and Ukraine where nobody appears to have any idea how to get out of what the Russian side calls their SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION against Ukraine in February this year. From what we’re seeing on TV and reading on the internet (we don’t really believe all of it), this is a very costly war in terms of human lives lost on both sides and the destruction of infrastructure mostly on the side of Ukraine. For us on this side of the world, we continue to feel the pains in our homes – the price of fuel is up, in fact rising from time to time, cost of living is also rising and people have taken to the streets to complain. This war must not continue because both countries mean so much to the world in terms of food production and energy resources.
The Ukrainians have made significant military gains on the ground in the last two weeks but the news coming out of those recaptured areas is horrible. They are talking about mass graves, torture chambers and damage to civilian infrastructure. This war must stop.
We don’t know how much leverage AFRICA can bring to bear as people call for an end to hostilities but doing or saying nothing is not the best way to go.
Now, other conflicts have opened up in four other countries not far from where Russia is attacking Ukraine. Suddenly the world has become a very dangerous place to live. When this whole thing started some Sierra Leoneans thought they should have fun with the issue – it was a faraway war so why not have some fun watching combat on TV and taking sides between Russia and Ukraine. The African refugees from Ukraine appeared on TV talking about racist treatment given to them as they fled, the price of fuel went up and the general cost of living increased dramatically.
This war must stop immediately. It’s beginning to look like WAR WITHOUT END.
AFTER PENINSULA VISIT: WHERE ARE WE NOW?
We’ve been counting the weeks since Principal paid that unprecedented visit to the Peninsula to see what relentless deforestation has done to our water resources in particular and the whole environment. He spoke passionately about the need to conserve the forest and not do things to dry up the main dam that supplies water to Freetown. Principal promised that those who sold land and authorized buildings within the so-called GREEN BELT would be brought to justice and the ordinary people who were around applauded. That way they registered their joy at the determination of Principal to end the menace once and for all. Good work sir.
We now want to know what Principal or the people around him have done since those pronouncements were made. From our little corner, we are beginning to think that it’s business as usual once more. We say so because we are living in a country where each time such pronouncements are made people pretend to be falling in line in the first few days after but they soon return to the old ways with even more vigor. Is that what is happening right now in the peninsula?
Why can’t those charged with the responsibility of giving effect to what Principal said take us to the same place once more and prove to us that they have done what they were asked to do? In fact Principal was urged to send some people in big offices packing because they are the ones behind the whole environmental mess in the Peninsula. Are they still in post? The more things change, the more they remain the same.
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