DE PA PREPARES to WRITE HIS MEMOIRS, WE OFFER to HELP
King Solomon launched his memoir last week and we finally got to know the title. We can now locate the title somewhere between Songs of Solomon and Lamentations of Solomon. A lot of people have bought the book already. We read it about a month ago. In the coming weeks we shall be commenting on a few issues raised by the King.
By writing his memoir, King Solomon followed in the footsteps of modern political leaders from all over the world.
Now, as De Pa enters his final term in office, he must be thinking about writing his own memoir. We believe that towards the end of the third year of his current term De Pa will be a lame duck and he will have time to start putting his thoughts together.
Here we offer practical help and we hope De Pa will call us in for a meeting soon based on the plan below.
We propose that the book to be titled Ernest Bai Koroma and the Re-incarnation of the Stevens and Momoh Styles of Leadership - 2007-2018, be divided into five chapters.
Chapter One
Obviously this chapter will capture his family background, introduce Sierra Leoneans to his family by doing a character sketch of those key people who would later influence the young man's life at home and in school. We will also sketch his childhood friends including minister of the north who just can't get round to remembering people's names, even that of his best friend.
We will not massage this section with the purpose of trying to let people believe the whole world knew young De Pa would become president from the day he was born. Pa Kabbah writes in his own memoir that he had a hand-written Marabou script clenched in his fist when he was born.
The difference between our effort and other recent writings for De Pa is that ours is a genuine move to tell an interesting story and we are ordinary citizens who love De Pa.
Chapter Two
This will cover his secondary school days at Magburaka and his time at Fourah Bay College. We have already done a lot of interviews with people who were in those institutions at the same time as De Pa. A few of those we interviewed even gave us some interesting documents and pictures of young De Pa. There’s a particular photograph in which young De Pa is seen with an Afro-national style haircut and Prince Nico pair of shoes. Fantastic pictures!
This chapter concludes with graduation from FBC and his life as a jobless youth man attempting to make a living as a teacher. In those days there was no problem with confirmation from the ministry of Education.
Chapter Three
Early life in business at RITCORP in that little apartment on Siaka Stevens Street (the company has changed dramatically in recent times with its own Igwe-type building at Percival Street). We shall chronicle the intensification of his political ambitions in the PDP, his flirtations with the SLPP and his emergence as an APC man.
We shall also write about his struggles to consolidate his leadership of a very sceptical party approaching 2007 elections with no hope of winning and those endless court battles.
Chapter Four
This chapter opens with the election campaign and victory 2007 and the formation of the formation of the first cabinet. Next will be some discussion about De Pa’s friends at home and abroad. The decision to visit Burkina Faso despite Compaore's role in the killing of Sierra Leoneans and the destruction of the country and his unbecoming friendship with the third-term man, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal will close chapter four.
The chapter closes with De Pa looking back on how he dealt with the Sierra Leone media - his true friends and self-seeking hacks.
Chapter Five
For this chapter, De Pa will tell the world things about his minsters and all those characters that went all over the world singing his praise. His alliance with CF Margai and the PMDC will also be looked at. We shall consider his best and worst moments in office and his anxieties about life after State House especially the loneliness of life without power on Sylvanus Street, Makeni. We shall also mention the UNMENTIONABLES, if you get our drift.
NB
What we have produced here is just to give you an idea of some of the issues we shall be looking at. There is a lot more. We don't want people plagiarizing our ideas from the pages of this newspaper. We have suffered at lot from that recently.
As we said in the beginning, time is of the essence and we are looking forward to having a meeting soon with De Pa so that we can give him the full proposal bearing our copyright and discuss terms. We definitely want to be paid in cash for our work but we shall promptly turn the money over to a few charities we have identified.
OLUNIYI BLACKOUT SINKS DEEPER AND DEEPER INTO DARKNESS
Well, well, well we have finally heard something from our great minister of Electricity. He spoke in his British accent but drawing from our experience watching BFBS in Sierra Leone, we were able to understand that he apologised because many people are calling his surname everyday all over the country Blackout, Blackout, Blackout and Blackout.
The trouble is, Oluniyi has refused to tell this nation what he has done or intends doing about his new surname. In his first few years in State House, De Pa kept Oluniyi away from the public so we didn't know his surname. We can't understand why he decided to release him just before the last elections. Now darkness has fallen over the land and we are back to where De Pa took off from in 2007 in terms of Blackout.
In these days of darkness, Koroma electricity has fled and Kabbah Tiger has returned in full force.
Oluniyi, let's tell you what we believe: Deifying De Pa in the media is good but RESPECTING the people who put him in State House is the most important.
With the former, your job on earth is probably secure but only the latter can secure your soul even in death. Tell us the truth and all mercies shall be added unto you. But come to think of it, De Pa is more to blame than you are. When there was Light De Pa took the credit. So he should take the flak for the blackout. Sorry Oluniyi. Nor to u fault. Way journalist den go interview u na so for tell dem, ya?
EITI VERY ANGRY WITH SIERRA LEONE: WILL HEADS ROLL?
Even the landlocked, rebel-infested rogue country of Burkina Faso passed the EITI test. How come Sierra Leone failed and has now been suspended? We have sent another wrong signal to the rest of the world that we are not transparent in our dealings with our extractive sector. We were suspended at the same time Haja NRA was being confirmed in her job.
We really deserve answers from those in that EITI Secretariat. We spend so much money keeping them there and yet the country is suspended and is facing the possibility of being de-listed and we know what that means.
Before becoming Minister of Finance, Commonwealth Marah was the man in charge. This is surely a clear sign that even Commonwealth officials can be out of their depth in certain areas. He pushed us into this hole and he must explain, or resign before he kills our POOR CREDIT RATING. By the way do we have one??? We will find out.
As for the secretariat, the workers there should be sent home by lunchtime on Wednesday. They just can't get anything right. The last time they went up country to raise awareness of their work (another term for chop, chop budget), the whole thing descended into a farce with allegations of corruption and ineptitude flying all over the place. This is certainly not the way things are done at the Commonwealth. In fact I hear the London Girl they employed as Communications Officer fled? We will follow it up.
FC JOHANSEN'S NO-SHOW AGAINST SHAMELESS BYC
So after all the hype over the last two weeks, Sierra Leone is out of the two continental club competitions. Local champions Diamond Stars were actually eliminated in the first half of their fixture in Abidjan but we went to the stadium anyway to see the "almighty" Ivorians who slaughtered our champs with a blunt knife.
We were very disappointed with what we saw.
Then came Sunday, the day FC Johansen were set to "eliminate" BYC of Liberia. Again we were very disappointed. After a respectful 1-0 defeat in Liberia, coach Keister was "sure" the return leg would be theirs. It wasn't. Johansen were like present day Kasila Stars of Bonthe – woefully lacking in belief, style and leadership on the field. They looked totally distracted and weak. We know them to be a good team in the Salone Premier League but on the big stage, they were a confused side.
The Liberians made things worse with their style of play. They came here with the intention to frustrate FC Johansen by feigning injury at the slightest opportunity, kicking the ball everywhere and making a nuisance of themselves. With FC Johansen deciding to use set plays to win, they fell into the trap of BYC and found themselves locked down throughout the match with the Liberians making about four goal line clearances.
Meanwhile up in the stands, lots of free food and booze and a cement raffle – full blown politics guys. Yes cement! Did the unnecessarily noisy SLFA politics distract the young minds of FC Johansen?
We were a little amused to see Pope John Paul a.k.a Lord Haw Haw in a G4S T-shirt with Johansen written on the back - perhaps the only moment of excitement in two hours at the stadium.
