BECE SUPERVISOR CAUGHT WITH CRUMPLED BANK NOTES
It was a really funny but extremely funny video to watch on social media. The main character was one of the supervisors of the ongoing Basic Education exam done by FIFTEEN year old children with a tray load of crumpled bank notes telling police officers that he came to the center on that day with that cash on him. “The money is mine” he told the scorpions. He even invoked the name of God to convince the officers. Our great supervisor stands accused of receiving all of that money to help rig the exam in favor of those children.
We live in a country where the law requires us to consider anybody caught in this kind of circumstance as innocent until a judge declares them guilty as charged. So we will obey that. It doesn’t stop us from looking at the issues around this matter anyway because we live in this country and we know that the issue of examination malpractice or alleged malpractice is very much a hot topic. So let’s go:
1. A second supervisor or possibly an underground police officer was heard telling the officers in uniform that at some point our main character challenged him over his persistent visit to his (the accused) area of work. Was that because the accused was feeling some uneasiness over a potential stumbling block to the success of the cheating game?
2. Unless one is a trader at Congo Market or Abacha Street or somebody who picks offerings at church services, it is highly unlikely that anybody will crumple bank notes of different denominations in their pocket on their way to supervising BECE.
3. From what we saw in that video, it is very clear that the cash came from different hands – almost like a traffic police officer checking his daily booking fees at the end of his shift at one of our busy junctions. Why was that so?
4. For Rasta Sengeh and his people, we don’t know what else to say to them about the new phenomenon of parents creating a carnival atmosphere outside examination centers. We have a good suspicion that the cash in that tray came from those people outside pretending to be giving moral support to their children.
5. We are waiting to hear from police on this because contrary to what many are saying now on social media this was never an ACC scorpion operation. We are investigating.
FORGET ABOUT ELECTRICITY COURTS GIVE US SPEEDY TRIALS
We have to call again on the police and the judicial system to speedily try those people arrested and paraded on social media as the people behind the stealing of electricity cables and the illegal extraction of electricity across the country. We have just read a report about the head of EDSA delivering TWO THOUSAND electricity meters to King Messi’s Seat of Power and in the process complaining about the same issues.
We want to tell Engineer Rogie that we are getting FED UP with complaints. He has a responsibility to make all these criminal activities either impossible or extremely costly for anybody to even think about. We want the deterrent effect of criminal trials to be brought to bear on the public in general and the community of criminals taking advantage of EDSA and the people of Sierra Leone.
This idea that Agba Kanja is pushing about having a special court to try electricity criminals is absolutely a non-starter. We ask the Chief Justice to reject it and insist on normal courts speedily trying whoever is brought before them on charges tied to the stealing of electricity.
By the way, we will fully cover the trial of people from EDSA and elsewhere who are accused of stealing SIX BILLION Leones from EDSA. We will publish the evidence against them and whatever they put before the courts in their defence. The nation will learn a lot about the way things are happening inside EDSA. The jury is out on whether that will help explain the blackout situation in some communities in Freetown.
THE HONEYMOON IN THE “NEW” SLFA MAY BE OVER SOON
Political honeymoons for politicians, as far as the media are concerned, would normally last about SIX MONTHS. During this period the media allow the newly elected government to settle in by reading their files and taking certain decisions to help them get to grips with the new responsibility and to a large extent critical comments are reserved and the inevitable first faltering steps of the new baby are ignored or understood in that context.
Since the coming to power of TDB in the SLFA, we have been watching things from our corner to get a feel of what the new man is planning to do and in particular how he intends to run the SLFA secretariat.
In the last FORTY EIGHT HOURS we have been briefed by very competent sources about a new approach to things inside the SLFA. The issues cover things like days spent at Home Suites hotel for God know what, at the expense of the SLFA and by extension the people of Sierra Leone, proposed administrative changes particularly those bordering on fiduciary matters and the deliberate attempt to cross the line between those holding political positions to cross into the day-to-day workings of the SLFA secretariat. We are not big admirers of the man running the secretariat right now but that shouldn’t matter at all. We are serving notice right now that as best as we can we will resist this in the interest of Sierra Leoneans, especially those young people who have made football their career and those businesses that thrive on the game being well run.
We have a few more issues on our table but this is like a warning shot being fired to make the point that the honeymoon is over. The history of this organization is such that we are always looking over our shoulders to see if those tendencies that caused the nation so much pain under Queen Johansen are still very much around, especially because her handpicked team is now running the show. There is NO reason so far to convince anybody that TDB will ever be his own man in that place. He can choose to be mummy’s boy. That’s fine. We pledge to stand by the good people of Sierra Leone to the end. We remain seized of this matter.
A SNEEZE IN SALONE AND BARROW CATCHES COLD IN GAMBAY
We are trying to find out what it feels like to decline a presidential call for a meeting. In Africa as elsewhere very people have declined presidential appointments because such meetings are normally well choreographed to avoid a presidential loss of face. So when it became public knowledge this week that the Gambian football team had refused to meet their president because of unpaid match bonuses from their qualification for AfCON, there was only one conclusion: the players had become frustrated by the delaying in paying cash due them. We notice that news of their refusal to see their president came to light after Principal has given our own players big money and acres of land for qualifying for the same tournament. Surely, Gambian footballers may have read stories of what happened at the dinner a few days ago in Sierra Leone and asked themselves why their own PREZO was delaying things. So that little sneeze at the dinner has resulted in a cold for Brother Barrow in that friendly country.
We understand that Barrow finally delivered on his promise. He is facing the electorate in December this year and the risk of a backlash from the public over the non-payment of the match bonuses would have caused some earthquake at the ballot box. Well done Brother Barrow.
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