By Asmieu Bah
It was in January this year. President Ernest Bai Koroma addressed a gathering comprising the Police, the Sierra Leone Roads Authority, Road Transport Corporation and civil society. In very strong language and tone he told them to put an end to lawlessness which he said had been permeating our society for a long time. He even said ‘’calls from above’’ would no longer be tolerated as every man must be below and not above the law.
The president spoke so tough that many thought sooner than later we would say goodbye to lawlessness, one of the main factors the country’s present state has been blamed on. Sad to say that the result we are getting is not encouraging and is a real contradiction to the president’s zealous pronouncement on that day.
That meeting at State House gave birth to what we now call Operation WID which has as its core principle to curb lawlessness and replant respect for the law which has eroded from our society.
Commercial bike riders, loud music on hailers mounted on vehicles tops and on the streets, street-trading, uncontrolled garbage disposal and parking in prohibited areas, civil servants misusing government resources were trumpeted by the President. In this article I will look at them one by one and see where we have made success and where we have failed, never mind the Freetown Mayor in a recent radio interview saying that Operation WID had an eighty percent success story. Still wondering where he got that fictitious figure from.
Since 2006, the city of Freetown has seen an upsurge in commercial bike-riding. There is hardly a corner without an ‘’OKADA’’. While they have helped ease our movement in areas that are not accessible by vehicles, they have also been a menace. Such is their confidence that they have been left unregulated and have become a law unto themselves. They levy their own transport fares at will.
Prior to the launch of Operation WID, Kissy Road was almost a no-go area for commercial vehicles at day time. Where they ventured they would spend two hours from Goderich Street to the Up Gun round about.
With the launch of the operation we were optimistic that the red line had been drawn. Unfortunately it hadn’t. For the first two weeks they were weeded out of Kissy Road and the other restricted streets. Politics, neglect and the loss of a sense of purpose by the drivers of the operation have led to its failure and collapse.
The commercial bikes are once more on Kissy Road hindering the free flow of traffic. The government is timid to take these folks off the prohibited areas for fear of hurting them. That is the weakest of fears a government should hold. In his second address to the US Congress, President Barack Obama said: “When I ran for President I promised I would not just do what was popular, I would do what was necessary”. A political decision taken to appease is bound to have a knock-on effect. President Ahmad Tejan Kabba halted Operation Free Flow for fear he or his party would lose votes. Despite that, his SLPP party was booted out of State House.
Since he took up office as Mayor of Freetown, Franklyn Bode Gipson has been living in his own world. He was part of the old Herbert administration, perhaps a reason he should not have been given the symbol in the first place.
On the issue of street trading it is my candid opinion that our traders in the city need a decent and habitable market. That notwithstanding their selling on the streets is unacceptable and has turned an eye sore of our city. Abacha Street was carefully selected for the second phase of the operation but I will bet it is still a no-go area. No sooner Operation Free Flow took off the ground than it fell like an airplane that is heading for a crash. So is also this so-called Operation WID.
The Sierra Leone Road Transport Authority is now disguising under the cloak of Operation WID to make billions of leones at the expense of hapless motorists. And no-one knows why the revenue authority does not collect such charges under its non-tax revenue portfolio. The act that created them had no intention of making them an institution to generate revenue. Their primordial reason to be is to provide safety in road transportation. Since Operation WID was launched SLRTA have been busy toeing vehicles even though they are yet to provide parking spaces for vehicle owners in the city as it is done in other cities – a non-crooked way of raising money for the Authority.
Is it not under their noses that vehicles, which normally ply Sierra Leone to Guniea, load passengers like cartoons of fish? Those are the vehicles they should try to apprehend because they are endangering the lives of citizens, and not toeing vehicles when the owner sometimes only drops by to shop even without obstructing traffic.
The curbing of lawlessness was one of the president’s pronouncements but it would seem as if lawless behaviour is just surging .For the past three months we have seen more than two stabbings in the city. The other day rag-tagged, unruly supporters of one of our local musicians almost brought the city to a standstill but for the intervention of the police who had almost been taken aback. We also witnessed kids at Model and Rokel Secondary Schools drawing daggers causing pandemonium on Circular Road, Berry Street and their environs. Can’t the Sierra Leone Police protect peaceful citizens from the harm of lawless people?
The garbage heaps in the city are piling up on a daily bases. The Waste Management and the Freetown City Council are still unable to find a lasting solution to this environmental and health hazard. Let’s face it: there are piles of garbage just opposite the Central Bank, guys urinate on the fence of State House in broad day light, etc. What is happening to this city? Is this the way we want things to continue? Are these not the issues Operation WID promised to address? I know the questions are rhetorical but legitimate questions they are nevertheless. The new Minister of Health is the chair of the Presidential Task Force of Operation WID, why can’t somebody else be given that position? As Minister of Health Miatta Kargbo has a lot already on her plate. What are the members of the committee doing? Do they want the president’s words to fall like empty air? Is this not another failed committee just like others that had failed in the past? This is a bad precedent that may haunt many an operations and many a task forces.
Asmieu Bah is a broadcast journalist working for the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation
