SUPREME COURT CASE MESSES UP CENTRAL FREETOWN
We still can’t believe that Munu ordered his people to lock down the heart of Freetown and manhandle opposition supporters the way they did just because of a case at the Supreme Court about an election petition that has taken longer than usual to be heard. Our judiciary wouldn’t like this but we strongly believe that Kenya and Ghana shamed us into moving after dragging foot for weeks.
The Kenyans have finished their own election petition and the Ghanaians are very close to closing the case one way or the other.
The police should never lock the city down like this anymore. Tens of thousands of Sierra Leoneans found it almost impossible to go about their normal businesses like looking for food to feed themselves and their children. The attendants at NP Filling Station at Cotton almost fell asleep all day. And their employers lost millions of Leones.
We suggest that the Supreme Court be moved immediately to the Special Court as constituted at Jomo Kenyatta Road and people be saved all this trouble of walking long distances in a city made even more chaotic by a visionless Operation WID. The building is not that important. As long as the judges are ready, we can even have a trial at Family Kingdom.
We are not getting the benefit of politics and democracy; we shouldn’t be made to suffer whilst Green and Red fight over resources and raw power.
7000 “GHOST” OR “UNVERIFIED” TEACHERS; OR WHAT ARE THEY PLEASE?
De Pa should just do what the education system has been crying for since the day Minkailu Bah became minister – put the man out of his misery by either sacking him now or at the least transferring him to the ministry of BLUNDERS. By the way, the redundant minister of state north is already in that ministry.
Minkailu started work in the Ministry of Education shouting “ghost schools, ghost teachers”, “ghost parents”, “ghost inspectors” and ghost everything. He called his friends and put them on big money to help him hunt down those ghosts. Four years later he came back to the nation to report that he only found a handful of “ghosts”. Was the exercise cost-effective? Minkailu refused to be interviewed. Ahhh sorry, seems he himself is a GHOST. When our minister finally faced the media for the first time in five years, he blamed falling standards on everybody but himself.
Now we know that alongside his own ghost-finding spree was another one undertaken by another government agency. Their report is not sure whether we have 7,000 unverified or ghost teachers. Why is De Pa doing this to us?
A ministry spin doctor then goes on radio and starts by dissociating the ministry from the report. Mid-way through the interview, he opens up his defence of the same report. Confused, Confused and Confused!
We are waiting for De Pa to put Minkailu out of his misery now.
BO CLOCK TOWER IN RUINS: BUT COUNCILLORS ATTEND TALKSHOP
Mayor Harold Tucker of Bo should never allow people to continue thinking about his predecessor, Dr Wusu Sannoh who did extremely well under very difficult circumstances. The present condition of the Bo Clock Tower is totally disgraceful and Mayor Tucker should never tell us about this plan and that plan.
When we saw the Clock Tower about a month ago, it was in a bad shape. The area around the vertical structure had not been cleaned for months, grass had taken over. Green, White and Blue celebration cloth hung on the tower, we don’t know when, is completed faded out and tattered. It’s still hanging there and the Mayor drives by everyday pretending to be blind.
He has just put together a workshop for councillors so that they can go there and talk and collect per diem and make resolutions that mean absolutely nothing.
We noticed too during that visit that sanitation was failing badly and the council is sleeping.
We warn Mayor Tucker that Bo city is a politically volatile place and if he got his people angry, his party would suffer. May be before it reaches that point, they may decide to throw Tucker overboard like any excess baggage on a ship in a raging storm. Never mind that he may join the party of asylum.
GYMASTICS AT RED FLAG CONVENTION
The RED FLAG boys are at it again. We read in one newspaper that the election of their chairman for the Northern Region was conducted in a strange pattern. According to the paper, by the time one of the candidates arrived at the venue, the elections were over. He wasn’t late at all, according to our source. He licked his wounds and declared he was withdrawing his candidacy. Funny stuff! How can you withdraw from a race that was already over?
It seems as if even Red Flag members still don’t understand how their own house behaves. It doesn’t take too long and too much reading to catch the trick. We know what it means to be a Red Flag man. We have seen many of them. A lot of them talk to us every day. They tell us the real things happening under De Pa’s roof and the political spin dished out on the rest of the unsuspecting Sierra Leoneans parading the streets daily.
The Red Flag people have been selecting/electing party executives across the country. We can say that Chief Sidikie is the biggest loser and the chips will go down sooner than later. We are waiting for the big convention and the one that will elect the flag bearer. Interesting days are coming.
WIMSAL ELECTIONS THIS WEEKEND: ANY FIREWORKS?
Female journalists will gather in Bo this weekend for their congress and executive elections. It should be a very important occasion for the ladies of the media to interact with each other and discuss some of the many problems that are unique to Women in the Media – lack of opportunities to grow to become managers or editors in media groups and the general working conditions that fail to consider their unique positions as professionals and mothers.
There are a few good examples to report but we have come a long way to be still talking about just a few.
We warn WIMSAL however, that they shouldn’t lose the opportunity to take a position on the persecution of the manager of Radio Gbonkolenken, a lady called Florence. God alone knows why political heavy weights from the Red Flag are fighting very hard to throw her out and replace her with a failed ruling party politician who was denied a symbol to contest the last election. The whole of SLAJ must take this up otherwise, like a domino, community radio managers around the country will fall under intense persecution by Red Flag actors. Florence has done extremely well in that place and SLAJ and WIMSAL in particular must not allow her to be bullied and disgraced. She is one of very few women in media leadership positions.
And please don’t invite Dennis Sandy, the former PMDC/APC minister to make a speech at this conference. We hope you haven’t forgotten what he said at SLAJ HQ on the day you asked him to launch your strategic plan.
He told you in front of all your distinguished guests that the greatest threat to the survival of WIMSAL was the fact that it wouldn’t take long before you started fighting among yourselves over boyfriends. Do you remember that? It was a really cheap shot. In some countries, he would have resigned a few hours after making such a statement about women. But in Sierra Leone, he stayed on until he stepped on De Pa’ toes. Like the other one who said chickens were more expensive than Sierra Leonean women. What a country!
Anyway, see you in Bo.
ARSENAL FANS MUST DECIDE WENGER’S FATE NOW OR…
The long-suffering fans of Arsenal in the English Premiership must decide quickly whether to keep Arsene Wenger as manager going into the next league season beginning in August this year.
Wenger is a master at the game and even at this point when their rivals in Manchester have regained the trophy they lost last year, Arsenal are playing great football. But they lack the necessary cutting edge to win anything. And Wenger is just unable to hold on to his best players. Here’s a list of those we can remember who left at their prime: Patrick Viera, Thierry Henry, Mathieu Flamini, Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri, Robin Van Persie, Alex Song…please help us with the rest.
How come other coaches are keeping their best players but Wenger keeps losing his? We will not take part in this talk that the players actually wanted to leave. Giggs has spent all his life at Manchester United because he has won many trophies. Robin Van Persie has just picked up the premiership trophy. That’s the real point.
After all these years without a trophy, Arsenal fans must now face reality and sack Wenger. We predict that if Wenger remained, Arsenal fans will wake up one morning in July to the news that Theo Walcott was off to Manchester United and Jack Wilshire was joining Barcelona. Keep us in mind during the pre-season.
