Feature

By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay

This week, a new episode of the football soap opera unfolded. As usual the drama unfolded in front of a grand audience on the social media platform, Whatsapp. 

This fresh row surrounded the request by the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) for East End Lions and FC Kallon to return their trophies.

The FA wrote to teams to return their trophies on Friday 18^th October and later wrote a press release on the 22^nd of October disassociating itself with the letter.

By Amjata Bayoh

Five years after the West African Ebola outbreak killed almost 4,000 people in Sierra Leone, out of over 10,000 people infected, the people are being encouraged to join the battle against another killer disease - an everyday killer - cancer.

Studies show that cancer is the leading cause of death globally, accounting for an estimated 9.6 million deaths in 2018.

By Abdul Tejan-Cole

Today, October 23, voters in Botswana, the country dubbed an “African Success Story” and a “bastion of stability and peaceful pluralism” go to the polls for the 11^th time since gaining independence from Britain on September 30, 1966.

Rutile, The Dusty Mining Town

By Kemo Cham

The dusty nature of the road linking Moyamba Junction to Rutile adds a discomforting touch to an awful experience for travelers.

Rutile is an informal reference to a group of communities within a geographical area endowed with the titanium mineral of the same name - just another Sierra Leonean community standing atop abundance of wealth, yet the people struggle in deprivation.

By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay

Le 50.4 billion is what the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) has budgeted to spend on rice for over 12,000 officers throughout next year. This is almost 60% of their entire budget for the year 2020, which is Le 92 billion in total.

To put this into context, the budget for rice alone for the SLP is bigger than the entire budget of the Ministry of Sports for 2020.l - Le 44 billion.

By Abdul Tejan-Cole

What a week last week was for Africa. It started disappointingly. On Thursday, October 10^th most of us woke up expecting that the renowned Kenyan author, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o would finally win the Nobel Prize. The prize was not awarded last year, so this year there were two prizes – 2018 and 2019. Our hopes were high that Ngugi would win at least one. He did not.

By Sitta Turay

Every time I drive pass two particular locations in Freetown, I really feel sorry for humanity. There is what is effectively a camp for people living with disability and mental health on Pademba road near the burnt out and decrepit facilities of the former Public Works Department. That camp holds more than a hundred people living with disability and their families and dependents.