WE ARE LOSINGTOO MANY PRECIOUS LIVES ON OUR ROADS
We are just a few weeks in the New Year but already the number of people killed on our roads is alarming. We don’t think there is enough outrage in Sierra Leone over this situation. Yes, the relatives of those involved in such crashes always cry and complain but after a few weeks we all forget about those deaths and return to normal business.
We don’t want to outline all the accidents we have recorded so far in this column but there is no doubt that the figures are high and something must be done now. Ask the Sierra Leone Police and they will tell you about investigations and court cases arising from those crashes. We are talking about how to prevent such road crashes. Investigations and punishments are part of the deal but prevention is the best way to go. This is what we believe the SLRSA and the SLP should do immediately.
1. Let’s make sure that all the vehicles on our roads all over the country are roadworthy and the drivers have the necessary papers. We should say something about our local vehicle mechanics because they are part of the factors responsible for road crashes. We’ve had enough of the guesswork going on in their garages.
2. Some SLRSA Wardens and Traffic Police officers on our roads should stop collecting petty bribes and making compromises in return. That’s how very bad drivers in rotten vehicles end up killing our people.
3. Police patrols on our highways out of Freetown should move out of their few checkpoints and actually patrol the roads and deal with reckless driving – driving way above speed limits being either totally drunk or having a conversation on social media.
4. We want local communities along our main highways to be trained in basic first aid and equipped for such exercises. They should be told that helping wounded and dying people is a very honorable thing to do, not stealing from them.
5. Can we quickly put a system in place in which the police or SLRSA would have the necessary powers to suspend the licenses of certain people? We have to do that because, like rotten vehicles, some very bad drivers should also go off the road.
JOHANSEN FIRES THE FIRST SHOT IN BATTLE TO REMAIN IN OFFICE
Inevitably, the SLFA and their implacable opponents known as THE STAKEHOLDERS appear to be heading to the courts again to start another legal war over many procedural questions leading to their elective congress in the coming five weeks or so. It has been clear to everybody that all along Johansen’s strategy has been to avoid coming face to face with her main opponent Rodney Michael and in trying to achieve that every trick in the book was considered absolutely fair. Otherwise, why would any normal football administrator in Sierra Leone chase people like Rodney Michael and Kasho Holland-Cole out of an SLFA congress even as observers and then accredit members of a laybelleh committee. The ultimate trick is to disqualify Rodney Michael and Mohamed Kallon and then go for FIFA backing which the queen will get. No doubt about that.
So the game is on and here are the steps they are taking:
First step – Set up administrative and judicial bodies packed with your own people and squeeze their approval process through congress even if by a very flawed counting process that puts those who counted and their paymasters to shame.
Second Step – Get FIFA to endorse that utterly bizarre process on the basis of some crooked report prepared by a FIFA representative who under the influence of certain things lost the sense of his own relevance in Kenema and became a Johansen cheerleader.
Third Step – The judicial and administrative bodies packed with their loyalists go into action. They pretend to be fair but end up doing exactly what you want by throwing out all your opponents thus clearing the way for a Tolongbo-style 1970s election in which their favorite candidates went unopposed.
Fourth Step – during this period SLFA boys will be unleashed on social media to be singing thy praise O the mother of all mothers, the Queen of the SLFA - the most viable candidate to take over from Infantino. Right? Anybody disagreeing with them the social media boys is violently attacked and told to stop hating the controversial SLFA president.
FBC HOSTELS TO REOPEN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
FBC students look set to return to the hostels on campus in the coming months and for the first time in years. This may sound strange, we know, but it is one of those really strange things that are absolutely true. Maybe it shouldn’t be strange that the students were asked to leave campus for the hostels to be comprehensively renovated but surely it is very strange that it took more than ten (10) years for the process to be completed and for students to start dreaming of their first few days in those hostels.
We can count at least three main factors responsible for the hostels being declared uninhabitable in the first place:
(1) Very bad handling of those facilities by the students including their habit of willfully destroying the place when they disagree with their colleagues during their union elections or indeed with the college administration.
(2) The almost complete lack of a culture of routine maintenance by the administration and
(3) Constant stealing of the college property by criminals in the surrounding communities and unscrupulous workers.
A huge amount of money has been pumped into the renovation effort by a foreign agency and the government of Sierra Leone. We congratulate all Sierra Leoneans for this achievement but we are a little worried at the same time. Here’s why.
1. We cannot guarantee that those three factors that wrecked those hostels in the first place are things of the past. Let nobody tell us that. This is a serious matter.
2. Can we have a whole day of orientation for the students occupying the hostels for the first time please? Many have never had such experience and are very likely to try and do too much.
3. Please tell the new occupants that they should never think about renaming any of the student hangouts on that campus. For example Bos Tick, Wisdom Tree and so on. Those names must remain.
4. Under what conditions are the hostels being opened up again? We ask because this country cannot afford to take money from the national purse for any further renovation any time soon. We hear there will be some kind of Public Private Partnership or whatever. We want details please.
5. Anyway, to the students we say, enjoy your stay on Mount Aureol and remember why you are there in the first place.
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