LEONE STARS FLYING AWAY TO LESOTHO: VICTORY PLEASE?
Our senior national team is heading out again, this time to play against their counterparts in the mountain Kingdom of Lesotho. That country has no serious track record of playing big time football and we mean no disrespect saying this. If anything we want to tell our own players that we will not accept even a draw. As it is now, we MUST win our next two matches to stand a chance of playing in AFCON for the first time in many years. So with respect to Lesotho, we MUST beat them on their own soil and then crush Benin here in Freetown a few days later.
Our coach John Keister is a man we have a lot of respect for we call on all those administrators around the game to allow him to do his job. Already, we have seen some very old and tired legs named in the squad. A few of the players on the priority list are people who in football terms are known as UNATTACHED. In other words they are not under contract with any clubs. It’s a real head scratcher that such players could find their way into our national team. We have nothing against them but we are very concerned about their fitness for competitive football at the highest level in Africa. For now we will not say much about the team because we don’t want to distract from the main objective of qualifying for AFCON. We maintain our earlier arguments however that all tired legs should be removed from our national team. We know them.
We have also noted an interesting line up of officials traveling with the team. It would appear as if some people have positioned themselves to be making their daily bread from such travels. We find no reason for some of them to be in the delegations for all our trips. Again, we will make that case on behalf of the good people of Sierra Leone against such large delegations after the next two matches. We want to keep our eyes on the desired outcome for now. We have only just fired a warning shot. We will be back.
EIGHT FOOTBALLERS KILLED ON THE ROAD TO MAKENI SO WHAT’S THE LASTEST?
This nation is still thinking about those young footballers killed in what people say was a road accident not far from the northern town of Makeni. People have donated millions of leones and food to the bereaved and the injured still fighting to stay alive in hospital.
We know that investigations are on-going to understand what happened. We have so far heard that their minivan was involved in a head on collision with a truck during that night journey. We urge the police and other security units on the ground now to talk to the nation as soon as possible on how our brothers came to lose their young lives in such a tragic manner. In fact we cannot understand why the police in Freetown have not been continuously briefing the media about this incident and its aftermath. Is that not the way other police forces operate? We have highly trained officers who know what to do, why are they holding back? This is an extremely serious matter.
We have told SLRSA and the police that while accidents are normal, we do not believe that that have done all they can to drastically reduce the number of lives we lose on the roads every year. They should never tell us there is nothing more they can do. We are asking for the details of this investigation because it will help us raise some of those same questions we have been asking for a long time about traffic management, including the quality of vehicles and drivers on our roads.
Driving at night on our roads outside Freetown is perhaps the most dangerous thing to do. It’s almost as if those roads become a kind of free for all after 7pm. We have observed a lot of things but we want the police and SLRSA to step forward now and explain what happened on the Makeni highway. The two organizations owe that to the good people of Sierra Leone. What happened on that road is totally unacceptable.
DAYS BECOMING WEEKS: WHO KILLED FBC LECTURER ARTHUR SMITH?
Questions are being asked on FBC campus about the status of the investigation into the killing of Senior Lecturer, Arthur Smith a lecturer in the Language Studies department who was found apparently strangled to death in his flat in the Lower Faculty area of the college. Smith is known as a quiet guy who goes about his normal business and lived alone. We can’t confirm but we understand that neighbors raised an alarm after they realized that he wasn’t up to his routine activities for about two days even with doors opened.
Colleagues and students are now asking how such a thing could have happened on a college campus without anybody noticing something. Are there no security guards on campus? Was this a robbery gone wrong or the mission was to kill Arthur Smith and why? As usual the Sierra Leone Police have told us they are investigating. We hear that from them all the time and in many such situations such cases have gone cold. In other words the cases die. We serve notice that we will not allow this particular case to die.
We are getting bits and pieces of information about what may have been the trigger for the killing but in this business we have to be very careful what we publish for now. We will follow the police investigation until the day a judgment is delivered in the High Court. We understand the late man’s friends have put forward millions of leones for people to provide information leading to the arrest of his killers.
Once again we warn IG Sovula that this will not end up another cold case. He MUST find the killers of Smith.
BOYS ARE ALSO BEING SEXUALLY MOLESTED IN SALONE
We abhor the spike in rape cases taking place in the country and we know victims are disturbingly very young girls and women. The nation is still seeking answers as to what actually happened to Khadija, the 5 year-old girl who was allegedly raped and strangled to death by her relatives. The High Court ruled the other day that there was no evidence to get the murder charge to stick. The accused persons are free again after NINE months. All those activists who launched spontaneous demonstrations on the streets of Freetown calling for action were NEVER in court to monitor the trial and they have not publicly said a word after the trial came to an end.
For now, we have to let the public know that sexual abuse of young boys is happening too but it largely going unreported. The boy victims are confused as to what they were subjected to and mostly do not even know what to do.
Not too long ago the head of the Rainbo Initiative spoke about 53 reported cases of rape recorded just within a week of that massive outcry about Khadija’s alleged sexual assault and death. From what we gathered from the man, relatives of the latest reported case were bold enough to come forward apparently encouraged by the overwhelming public support for late Khadija. Even Principal in a press conference at State House expressed his government’s resolve to address the issue of rape in the country. He was quite resolute in his determination to see perpetrators account for their despicable actions. Two boys under the age of 10 were amongst the cases at the Rainbo Center and both were allegedly assaulted by an older man.
We want to warm up to the idea of cranking up greater awareness for people in communities to also look after their boys too as they could be preyed upon by men or even women. Sad to say, boys could be out there going through the trauma of being sexually abused and the bitterness of the experience heightens as they get older. We believe abuse of boys should be part as well of discussions and measures to do with the sexual molestation of children.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (24/03/21)
