YVONNE AKI-SAWYER TRYING TO SPIN HER WAY OUT OF TROUBLE
The Mayor of the Sun says she was quoted “out of context” when she made those silly comments about not employing any “buwa, bisieh”, referring to Mende people in her council. She also told the world that the material was “edited”. So, we are very happy she didn’t insult our intelligence by telling us the whole thing was a complete fake and that it was some actress from Berkshire playing Yvonne Aki-Sawyer in the leaked audio. Some who have been caught out this way have told us about fake audios. Let’s proceed.
Firstly, Madam Mayor of the Sun, you say you were “quoted out of context”, so what was the context of that tribal nonsense please? We respectfully ask you to carefully explain the context. We are used to politicians fighting their way out of public disgrace by simply bringing this “out of context” expression into a serious conversation and running away. We want our Mayor to explain the full context of that conversation that was deliberately leaked. We will not attempt to lead on what we mean by context. The Mayor has told us about being “quoted out of context” so it’s up to her to explain the context in full.
Secondly, Our Mayor also told us the audio was “edited”. What we know for sure is that there is a longer version of that conversation that we have received on social media. It is very easy to know when a piece of audio is edited. Sometimes it’s just by listening carefully, paying attention to the inflection in the voice of the main speaker. The other way is to use modern editing software to pick out all the points at which the audio was edited. Our Mayor of the Sun should know that such software is widely available in Sierra Leone. She has to be very careful repeating the idea that the portion of the audio that is now in the public domain was “edited”.
Many Sierra Leoneans have called on the Mayor to resign and go home. She is holding on tightly, thinking that this matter will soon go away. It will not. We can assure you dear Mayor that many people are working hard now to get the full recording of what you said from your heart in that meeting. We are hearing in fact, that the real bombshell is in the second audio.
Our sources say the second audio is due for release any time soon.
We remain ceased of this matter.
Meanwhile we have received interesting news about something that happened many years ago in a student organization at FBC with the acronym AISEC. It’s an organization for students in economics. We will be back.
JOHANSEN ON A MISSION TO EMBARRASS GOVERNMENT
There is certainly NO DOUBT now that Queen Isha Johansen is out to embarrass this government thinking she is about our laws. She believes that FIFA is bigger that Sierra Leone and that as long as she has managed to convince them that SLFA cannot be run by any other Sierra Leone, she can do anything. It is up to the government to do what we believe they must to end this nonsense. We are only taking this issue up because this is our country and WE OWN THE SLFA.
Here’s the issue: the government issues a public statement detailing the amount of monies transferred to the National Sports Authority NSA, an agency created by an act of parliament and the Ministry of Sports, but before we could read and grasp the details of the statement from the Ministry of Finance, Queen Johansen issues a statement suggesting to the world that what the Ministry of Finance had disbursed to the Ministry of Sports and NSA was way above the budget her SLFA presented to the Ministry of Sport. There is nowhere in statement where the SLFA is mentioned as a recipient of government money, so why did Johansen feel compelled to react?
We understand Johansen has a few powerful friends in government who have swallowed the lies she tells FIFA about this country and key stakeholders in the local game and that those are the people encouraging her to attempt to return unopposed as president after the much-delayed congress. All her press release did was to unjustifiably create an impression of corruption around government and its agencies.
The fact is all monies given to those agencies are audited by the statutory auditing agency in this country, so what’s all this noise about? Is Johansen telling us that the Ministry of Finance should only release what SLFA asked for? How about other sporting disciplines? This SLFA should be the last organization to talk about probity in public office.
Johansen and her SLFA should just shut up after the broad daylight massacre that they committed last week using the hands of a hapless so-called Ethics Committee. Things are so bad now at the SLFA that something drastic has to be done. We just wonder what would happen to this country if Principal were to tell the National Electoral Commission to disqualify all candidate that are likely to do well in 2023, leaving the field clear for him to go unopposed.
The back story to the so-called Ethics Committee will unfold after they reveal their detailed report in the coming days. The game is on.
OKADA TOUTS AT FBC - MODEL JUNCTIARE SHOULD BE REMOVED
If you are driving to Model Junction on the Hillside bypass road, driving to the east from Dwazark Junction you will see a group of young men to your right and dozens of motorcycles taxis behind them. Those young people are engaged in a very dangerous struggle for passengers for those OKADAS for a small commission. It’s from what they collect on that road that they survive so we understand why they are so desperate and reckless.
Hundreds of people from the mountain villages of Leicester, Regent and Gloucester and hundreds of FBC students assemble in that place in the morning and evening to commute to work and school and the way the OKADA touts go about getting them into their taxis or on the back of their OKADAS is dangerous. The boys operate in the middle of the main road and in some cases literally pluck people from the back of one OKADA to the other.
We hope it never happens but the day a vehicle malfunctions on approach to Model Junction from Albert Academy, we will be in for something very serious. The whole Model Junction area is becoming a totally impossible place.
We see police officers around with some Road Safety Corp but we don’t think that bringing order to that place is what they are trying to achieve. We are told FCC workers also collect dues from traders.
We’ve been calling attention to various issues around Model Junction on the Hillside bypass road. We are happy to be ignored once again because sometimes it feels really good to come back and say WE TOLD YOU SO.
GREEK-STYLE LOWER LEVEL ELECTIONS IN KENEMA
We saw a bit of the troubled lower levels elections of the Green Movement in Kenema last weekend. First of all it is a good thing to get so many young people involved in the political process at the local level as long as it is positive. What we don’t understand in this whole process is why the organizers hate the actual ballot box so much. They hate it so much that they asked voters to line up behind their candidates to be counted. This is a kind of democracy that doesn’t guarantee the secrecy of the ballot. Is that what the Green House headquarters approved or is it the decision of the district executive?
We received some calls and voice notes from some disgruntled party members complaining about the general conduct of the lower level elections. That happens in electioneering processes in this country so we haven’t given much thought to it until we saw a statement from Green party headquarters announcing the setting up of a committee to investigate complaints about the process. We are looking forward to the conclusions of this committee but this democracy without a secret ballot is problematic. We are not in Ancient Greece.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online {31/03/21)
