PMDC AND PRIVATE MILITIAS
The Dalai Lama woke up from along self-induced coma the other day and immediately called a news conference. We were among those invited. It was great to once again hear those long and rambling speeches from the Dalai Lama. We left the place convinced that the guy has a lot of catching up to do. He put his former allies to the sword and gave some hints about what he meant by PLAN B when he pontificated at the last SLPP elective conference.
But sir, do you still remember what you said just before you went into coma about how to respond to political violence? You suggested that it may be necessary for all parties to have their own private militia going into the elections. How far have you gone with that sir? We ask because you have just said at last week’s news conference that if the government didn’t sack Musa Tarawallie, the controversial Minister of Internal Affairs there could be a ‘confrontation’ – verbal or what? Some of your people were hoping you will keep yourself in coma till 2015. They think that each time you face the press you make long, incoherent and boring speeches that end up embarrassing them. We are not making this up. Ask them in private, the bold ones will tell you.
By the way your party office in Makeni is being used for some anti-social activities that the people of the town are getting fed up. We hear police raided the place a few days ago. Please check that out.
NDA MAN RETURNS WITH A BIG DINNER
So NDA ‘Spokesman’ Hugo Chavez is still around. The guy has been completely missing in action for more than two months. He returned to the scene on Monday night with a dinner party for media people. We suspect that this came straight from his notes in the Public Relations lessons he’s been taking recently. It will take the next few days to determine what journalists think about this new NDA charm offensive. This is an interesting way for Hugo Chavez to come back from the brink after that attempt to throw him out of his party.
It began with a press conference by a section of the NDA – a handful of young ‘original’ NDA people who for some reason felt that their alliance partner, a Hugo Chavez clone was attracting too much public attention and had to be cut down. Bruising encounters on many radio stations and newspapers escalated what was really a small internal matter to an internecine war that has basically destroyed the NDA. The party has lost its visibility and innocence and our dear NDA spokesman, the great friend of the media is reeling.
At the British Council not long ago, the NDA Chairman was attempting to address the question of why the FOI bill was still gathering dust in parliament. Mr. Chairman lost control of his temperament and rambled on and on about things totally unrelated to the topic. This is where we really miss Hugo Chavez.
Chavez understands the issues, he is intelligent and has no political baggage to prevent him from doing his incisive political analysis but we suspect some cynical political manipulation took place in the background that brought about that press conference at SLAJ headquarters and the subsequent skirmishes. It was easy to knock out Hugo Chavez because like John Leigh, he was the only Socialist Movement man that entered the so-called alliance with the NDA. May be like John Leigh, he was also hopes to help his supporters if ‘betteh bin fallah am usai e go’. Anyway the dinner was ehhhhhhhhh, not bad. When is the next one? We need frequent interaction ahead of November.
IS PDP SORBEH STILL AROUND?
A voice came from the wilderness the other day crying Sorbeeeeeeh! Sorbeeeeeeh! Sorbeeeeeeeeeeh! It was a desperate rallying cry like an army general preparing to make a hopeless last stand. Here was a great political organisation with some of the best political brains in Sierra Leone that went off the rails just before the death of its charismatic leader, the firebrand Thaimu Bangura. Political decisions informed by naked greed on the part of those who succeed Thaimu was the party’s greatest undoing. We feel sorry for those trying to revive the party at this time but please don’t give up though because even Mr. ‘Operation no Living Thing’ is still hanging in there, getting some attention in the media and picking up small pennies from the UN, the PPRC and we suspect frommmm...welllll, let’s say local sources. He also got an SLPP politician to defect to the ‘No living thing’ campaign recently. Isn’t that great? This is truly a peaceful. Only yesterday the guy was threatening to cleanse this land of all living things. Instead of joining Radovan Karadzic in The Hague, he is here pretending to be a political leader. The people’s verdict will be severe, give us a few months. To our friends in the PDP don’t give up, some of your former stars might just return from the RED Shirts camp and join your struggle. Who knows? Your miracle is on the way.
FBC POLICE STATION
This station needs the attention of Francis Munu urgently. The place has been abandoned for too long. It is squeezed in a little corner behind the FBC estate office. In other words it’s not clearly identified as other police stations. The building is old, badly in need of painting, absolutely no furniture and grass creeping on its access way and surrounding. In the morning, there will be no more than three officers including one very opinionated one who spends all his time talking about Cambodia, the Rwandan war and even about Boko Haram. Recently some fourteen year olds found an unexploded mortar bomb on FBC campus. They took it to FBC police so that they make the necessary arrangement for the bomb to be detonated. The officers quickly fled, shouting ‘una nor bring trouble nar yar’. Bombs are scary little materials, we know, but the way the guys fled their station was just a little unacceptable.
Everyday thieves are busy stealing college properties and distressing poor students. Female students in particular are attacked in broad daylight at different points between White water and Kortright. We are not asking for a central police kind of deployment. We however think a lot more has to be done with the building, the number of officers deployed there and whether they report for duty at all. FBC campus is a rich picking ground for all the thieves around Kamanda Farm Mount Aureol Terrace and Leicester Road.
MORE SUPPORT GROUPS SPRING UP
The other day we brought you news about how support groups are springing up all over the place in support of De Pa’s second term bid. There’s absolutely no problem with that. It’s just that we have this feeling deep inside that a good many of them are not genuine, they are just there to make a quick kill. Doesn’t De Pa also think so? From Monday to Sunday, agile young men and women who have mouths to feed spend the first three productive hours of the morning yelibaing...on the roadside. De Pa needs your votes but please wait for November 17. Many danced for Berewa in 2007 but in the end it was De Pa who marched to State House.
As we drove past Saint Augustine’s Church two days after our last publication, we saw a group called IMATT Development Association singing and dancing as De Pa passed by on his way to work. Don’t these people have work to do? There’s somebody with a deep pocket in a dark corner continuously oiling the wheels of deception represented by those junction support groups. Watch out for more of these groups as the days go by.
MUSA TARAWALLIE GETS NEW NAMES
Did you listen to the interview on 98.1 FM the other day by Info Minister IB Kargbo? Government has effectively banned all government functionaries from talking without permission from the Minister of Information and Government Spokesman. Quite interesting! He was responding to the garrulousness of government functionaries, weeks after Politico had advised them to keep a bit quiet. While the IG was giving one reason for the police arms shipment, Internal Affairs Minister Musa Tarawallie was giving another. Hehehehehe. This is not funny at all! Very serious! When asked why the sudden apparent ban IB said not all “Tom, Dick or Harry” should be talking for government. Apparently it was Musa Tarawally that was being referred to as Tom, Dick or Harry. He also referred to every JACK and JILL. Wonders will never end.
