In this final edition for the year, we reproduce some of the issues we dealt with this year for your delight. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year
THE CHIPS ARE DOWN IN LUNGI AND BIG HEADS COULD ROLL
We are only a few days into the period after the people of Lungi took matters into their own hands to fight criminality targeted at government facilities installed in that place to improve the lives of the people but already the surprises we asked you to prepare for are beginning to appear. At this stage we are going to be careful not to cross a crucial line in journalism and call anybody a criminal despite the indications we are getting about those that were behind all the criminal activity in Lungi in particular and Portloko district in particular.
To put things in proper perspective, solar panels and batteries, electricity transformers and cables are also being stolen in other parts of the country including Freetown but the thieves in Lungi have been brazen and unrelenting. Like other ordinary Sierra Leoneans, we have been asking ourselves why people would steal or destroy government installations that should serve whole communities. We’ve been told it’s largely about politics – so if the New Direction lights up Lungi and supplies water to the people, Tolongbo would lose support in their own backyard. That would be the worst thing to do to stop voters from deserting a political organization. What we really think is happening is that criminals are at work and we should stop them.
We have said in this column before that EDSA must do everything possible, including deploying the army to protect our properties. We will not listen to any more complaints trying to win our sympathy. EDSA has been complaining all over the place while the criminals continue to destroy such vital installations.
We should all stand by for surprises from Lungi. This is not politics. It is CRIMINALITY.
END CORRUPTION AT SLRTC BUS TERMINAL IN FREETOWN NOW.
We were hoping the SLRTC would say something to the public or at least take steps to end the suffering of their passengers at the main terminal in Freetown but they have remained in their reclusive mode hoping and praying that we will drop this issue. We want to disappoint SLRTC this time because we will keep pushing this till the cows come home. SLRTC workers at the main bus terminal at Wallace Johnson Street have not changed in FORTY YEARS and it seems to us that their bosses in the east of the city are either unaware of the corruption taking place at the terminal (WE DOUBT THAT VERY MUCH) or are complicit in what their people are doing to ordinary Sierra Leonean commuters going about their normal business between Freetown and poor rural communities.
The good people of Sierra Leone always turn up very early at the terminal to buy their tickets to travel. They stand in suffocating queues for hours before the SLRTC staff stroll in lazily for work. For a 54-seater bus on a typical journey, they sell just TEN tickets and then close the window. How can a passenger standing in the NUMBER ELEVEN spot in that queue not get a ticket on a bus that takes FIFTY people or so? The disappointed travelers will then be forced to buy at black market rate from street boys who have made the terminal their home unchallenged.
SLRTC workers at that terminal cooperate with those boys and almost certainly share in the proceeds of that criminal enterprise. Otherwise, where do they get the tickets that people stand in the queue for? And how come one shabby looking boy is able to buy about FIVE tickets? We have experienced that in person within the last three weeks.
The big people at SLRTC headquarters can continue burying their heads in the sand in their air-conditioned offices in the east, drinking coffee while ordinary Sierra Leoneans suffer such brazen corruption at their main terminal in Freetown and at other terminals in the provinces.
Apart from this open corruption, the terminal itself is badly in need of upgrade – the toilet is very bad, criminals invade the place and distress people at the slightest opportunity and there’s no proper sitting area for the large crowds that use the terminal.
We understand the SLRTC boss is one of the many diasporans who are now holding big positions in this country. He is from London. Can he just give us something that looks like Paddington station at our ONLY bust terminal in Freetown?
A WEEK OF UNPRECEDENTED PRESIDENTIAL OPENNESS
During this year we witnessed what we can only describe as unprecedented. For the first time as far back as we can remember, a president of Sierra Leone walked into radio and TV stations across Freetown and urged the journalists to ask him any question about his stewardship to the nation in the THREE YEARS since he was democratically elected.
He crowned the media engagements in Freetown by taking part in a town hall event at Bintumani Hotel. No matter what we think about his performance in office and the way he responded to the many questions, we must all agree that he has set a very good example. Here is a president who voluntarily steps forward and opens himself up to scrutiny by the media. Well done!
In his almost ELEVEN years in office King Messi met the media only TWICE. Well, he may have done private briefings with his favorite media organizations and personalities (this was a president who pursued a divide and rule policy in the media) but he called a news conference in the early days of his regime at Miatta Conference Hall. The whole program was obscured by the fact that hundreds of his party people turned up and some behaved in a threatening way to critical questioning. That was hardly a news conference.
The second came after a visit to China. It took place at the State House. At the end of it he promised to be meeting the media ONCE EVERY MONTH because of ADVISORY NOTE NUMBER 8 from his media adviser, the venerable IB Kargo. No such news conference took place until he left the State House. And at no time did he feel the need to walk into radio and TV stations to be interviewed. Let’s not talk about having a town hall exercise. So yes, Principal’s action last week is unprecedented.
Many issues came out of the media blitz and in the coming days and weeks we should be picking them up one after the other for discussion in our usual way but for now we want to thank Principal and his media people for this openness. Sierra Leone is a democracy.
AVOID PEKITOES RIGHT NOW, AVOID JAIL: STAY SAFE
As they say on the streets of Freetown these days, 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, find 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.
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