IT’S GETTING HOT AT THE SEXUAL OFFENCES COURT
Prison sentences are being handed down like hot cakes at the recently established SEXUAL OFFENCES division of the High Court. At least three men have been thrown into prison for a decade and more in the last week or so. There are other cases going on including the one involving Mohamed Kamarainba Mansaray. He faces SEVEN counts including sexual penetration of a girl that is under 18 years of age. For legal reasons we can’t push into this aspect for now. This trial will grip this nation once the evidence starts getting on radio and newspapers. We will be covering it wall to wall.
We are observing this court for a few reasons: They are very quick in concluding cases and the judges are the same ones doing cases in the normal High Court where some other cases take forever. So what’s really happening? Is this court also in operation outside Freetown or all such cases are tried in the capital? Is it that this court has more resources than the normal High Court? Anyway, we love the fact that things are moving fast but we have to be very careful not to sacrifice justice. We don’t yet have any evidence of that but it makes sense to put that on the table right now in these early days.
As they say on the streets of Freetown these day, DE GAME DON BIG O on this issue so men should be extremely careful. One small joke in one little corner could end with an indictment and TEN YEARS at Pademba Road. The best way to avoid a date with that court is to:
1. Stay off this PEKITO business. Don’t even encourage that traditional thing where parents literally hand their children over in several guises. This court is very dangerous.
2. If you want to spend some cash helping young people please go to Don Bosco or SOS and do blind adoption. In other words fund a child in any of those places without seeing them. Those are good organizations. Your money is safe.
3. Don’t go into any situation where PEKITOES will be hanging around doing their selfies. Being misunderstood could raise serious alarm. If you see them near your house lock your doors and have a sound sleep or run.
4. Social media friendships with people you don’t know MUST STOP now. That’s how things develop.
5. Totally avoid this side chick thing. If you think it’s impossible, then we may sooner rather than later meet at this new court.
WASSCE AND ALL THE NOISE ABOUT MALPRACTICE
All this noise about examination malpractice is coming from people who take pleasure in discrediting things like this or some organizations looking to write a funding proposal to do this and that about exam malpractice. Otherwise, why should anybody spend so much time putting out fake papers claiming them to be leaks of a paper that is yet to be written?
In these days of social media people cook up and release some mischief and before long others join in by sending such rubbish all over the place without verifying anything. When they are challenged, they will react by saying they are seeking clarification. We don’t fall for that trick anymore because those people know how to get authentic information but they prefer to join the noise-making and cause credibility damage to people and institutions.
We know that people try to cheat in almost all exams and they use all kinds of methods. Because the WASSCE exam is so crucial for entry into University, young people, sometimes with the support of their parents try to cheat. And the interesting thing also is that exam supervisors are the main facilitators of such criminal conduct. The actions of a few unscrupulous people has cast a long shadow over the whole WAEC examining process and we are getting to a stage at which result issued by this body will be so discredited that international Universities will start turning them down or putting our students through extra levels of academic scrutiny.
It’s now time to investigate the sources of all false information about exam malpractice in the same way we investigate when there is smoking gun and punish people. Those who make false claims in such matters are like people who shout fire in a crowded theatre and claim their right to free speech. They should be promptly arrested, tried and jailed for recklessly destroying the reputation of people and institutions.
LIGHTING UP TOWNS AGAIN AFTER DECADES
The latest supplementary budget presented before the house of parliament by Finance Minister JJ Saffa somehow highlighted very interesting projects that this government wants to fund in the coming months. What has certainly attracted great interest for people in seven districts is the government’s plan to bring electricity to the towns of Kabala, Kambia, Kailahun, Moyamba, Pujehun, Bonthe and Mattru, places where older folks could barely recall dim memories of bulbs lighting up in their homes. For some places like Moyamba it’s been almost two generations now that the town which is closest to the capital has gone without electricity. You may wonder why on earth our people should be denied of such a basic service like electricity.
Kambia is the first big town for anyone coming into Sierra Leone from Guinea but the place has not seen light for decades. Some 17 million dollars is going into this project and that’s a huge sum of money indeed. People would want to see the implementation process if the exercise is efficiently carried out by competent and committed individuals. People don’t want to face a situation where this much needed electrification of their towns could turn out as just a flash in the pan.
We’ve seen many projects in this country go that way before and that’s why we are demanding a thorough handling of this latest push by principal’s administration. For instance the much trumpeted road construction project for Moyamba town was a complete mess. Apart from the few asphalt applications along parts of the main street and a few others, the whole project collapsed and the company executives fled town, leaving behind unpaid and understandably irate workers.
It took the negotiating skills of then deputy works minister Melrose Kargbo to really calm the workers and also property owners who also complained of lack of compensation for losing their assets to the disastrous road project. Another project for Moyamba residents that was supposed to bring running water into their homes collapsed and became an unfulfilled promise.
Imagine the economic benefits power supply will bring to people in those places; Kabala and Kailahun both having promising touristic sites would be able to preserve foods and cold drinks that they would be selling.
Fishing communities in the districts of Pujehun and Bonthe would be able to sell frozen fish and other sea products in these towns. We’ve always been saying Freetown is not Sierra Leone and it’s high time that rhetoric is matched with realistic practicalities.
EPL TRANSFER WINDOW MADNESS TAKESCENTER STAGE
This is that really silly time of the year again when people like us who follow English or say European football spend a good part of our time doing nothing other than reading the same stories or outright lies throughout the day knowing fully well what we read is completely false.
Such stories about managerial and player sackings and transfers are found not just on social media but even in respected newspapers, radio, TV and blogs. They call it GOSSIP and we still and do our best to convince ourselves there is some truth especially if it concerns the movement of certain players in a direction that is favorable to our aspirations.
In these GOSSIP COLUMNS, player managers concoct all manner of lies about their players just to market them. They lie about bids being submitted, negotiations taking place, medicals being done and actual signings taking place. The media organization knowing fully well that what they are normally being told are bundles of lies will take those stories because they always want to keep feeding us with no consequences.
On the home front, local media organizations reproduce these lies on a daily basis and make them the basis of whole radio and TV programs that are sometimes funded by reputable organizations. It tells us how powerful GOSSIP has become in modern football. So important that advertisers will pay for programs that they know are built on total lies. But again, there are people out there listening and the advertisers are interested in them. Bring on the GOSSIP COLUMNS please.
Copyright © 2020 Politico Online
