ThinkTank

By Umaru Fofana 

First of all I owe you an apology for the long hiatus without writing. It has been a very busy few months for me. In the last one month, for example, I have been travelling the length of the world – from Africa to Europe and to Asia. But I have also extensively travelled across Kailahun district where I have been following the trail of the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone for NHK TV or Japan TV to be able to determine a few things.

By Umaru Fofana

There once lived an unhappy young girl whose mother had died. Her father married a widow who had had two daughters with another man. The stepmom hated her guts. And the story goes on and on and on, with the horror Cinderella had to endure, albeit with a very happy ending. Yes a very happy ending.

By Umaru Fofana

It seems EXPULSION is the new political lingo in town. As if the controversy surrounding the sacking of the elected Vice President is not suffocating the country enough, the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) have followed in the footstep of their ilk – the governing All People’s Congress (APC) party – whose reasons for the expulsion of Samuel Sam-Sumana is anything but convincing to me.

By Umaru Fofana

For many years – not least during the country’s civil war in the 1990s – he was the dominant voice of the BBC in Sierra Leone. So much so that when I started working for the World Service I would not only be mistaken for Lansana Fofana but got asked many a time whether he was my brother.

By Umaru Fofana

Nigeria is the power engine and big brother in Africa in more ways than one and has pumped more money into Sierra Leone – both as aid and as investment – than any other country has done in the northern hemisphere.

Ghana is the beacon of stability and democracy in the sub-region and one Sierra Leone has a lot to learn from. It is fast becoming – if not already – the poster boy for things on the up in Africa.

By Umaru Fofana

By Umaru Fofana

Sierra Leone is in the doldrums, especially politically speaking. And this is ineluctably having a reverberating effect on the overall impact of the country. The country is led by an unnecessarily large government made up of many clueless people appointed not necessarily from among its best or brightest.