TAM BARYOH FREED: SALONE MEDIA PLEASE DON'T CELEBRATE
Ok let's celebrate for a few minutes because we have one of our own back from the hell called Pademba Road Correctional Centre. How we wish that were so – that the central prison was truly a correctional centre! The authorities admit that the place was meant for 300 people but that they now have close to 2,000 people banged up there. The same authorities pride themselves in having a good human rights record. How strange! We are always busy locking people up yet we claim to have an enviable human rights record.
The sober reflection on how after a radio programme one of us was whisked off and jailed in this way and released without charge must begin now.
1. First question: who's next? Let no one tell me there will be none next. We thought we had crossed that line with Jonathan Leigh and Bai Bai Sesay but a government that told people it was the most media-friendly has, within a few days, taken its place among those nations where journalists are in hell. The Gambian president must be wondering why they keep the noose on him. So there will be a next.
2. When will De Pa make good his manifesto pledge to REPEAL – later modified to REVIEW - the universally hated criminal and seditious libel laws of 1965? We still have copies of that Red Movement manifesto. We have reason to believe that REPEAL or REVIEW may never happen under De Pa. But we can still call his attention to what he told us on his way to State House in 2007.
3. Should Tam-Baryoh's detention cause the whole media (well it will never be the whole as there are some non-journalist journalists in our midst) to redefine their position with the government? We are pointing at our collaborative role here. We ask because our relationship with De Pa is definitely now what Joe Hills calls HAND A BOWL - KNIFE A THROAT.
4. Isn't the time right to push hard for the State of Emergency to be lifted? There's hardly anything we can do now that doesn't constitute a breach of the State Of Emergency. Misuse and abuse of what should be meaningfully used! Police officers are even arresting and charging people for jogging on the beach. Watin dis baaaaa?
5. SLAJ must call an emergency meeting to reflect on how we cover the Ebola attack without offending De Pa. May be we should always report donations, photo opportunities with Hasting survivors, meetings with traditional authorities to discuss Ebola and their staff of office and this and that without asking critical questions – the feel-good side of the Ebola story. SLAJ must meet now. DREB EBOLA programme or not!
EBOLA ATTACKS LIBERIAN BORDER COUNTY: SALONE UNDER NEW THREAT
Good stories are coming out of our two sister republics these days as far as fighting Ebola is concerned. The rate of infection is slowing in both Guinea and Liberia. But things are getting very dangerous in Sierra Leone. Let's celebrate with our brothers and sisters as good news there, is good news here. In fact Liberia has gone as far as lifting the dreaded State of Emergency. Well done Liberia!
But, here's something we should be worried about: Liberia has announced new outbreaks in Cape Mount County, the county bordering Pujehun district on the southern tip of Sierra Leone. That's a cause for concern.
There are thousands of Sierra Leoneans living in Cape Mount and they travel in and out of Liberia whether the border is closed or not. Pujehun has so far seen 28 cases. All that could change soon because:
1. Police officers enforcing the border closure cannot be trusted - some have been sacked for taking bribes at checkpoints to help people beat quarantine. We've also heard about one officer who went into a quarantined home and had sex with a girl in Ebola lockdown. How more reckless can anyone get!
2. Recently Liberia sent many Sierra Leoneans packing out of their country. They were dumped just across the border. Nobody has told this country why. In fact where are those people now? What stops Liberia from dumping Sierra Leonean Ebola cases across the border?
3. What stops the Liberians from using our erstwhile NEC Sister of Cluny's interpretation of ORDINARILY RESIDENT to kick our people out and dump them where they don't belong inside Sierra Leone?
ARE INFRARED THERMOMETERS TRULY NECESSARY AT CHECKPOINTS?
Using infrared thermometers to determine body temperature at checkpoints across Sierra Leone was meant to be a good weapon to fight Ebola. So we would have been able to identify and isolate infected people but frankly, the whole thing is now a big joke. We must act fast.
1. We have passed through many checkpoints without being checked at all. When we are checked, they give us crazy readings. On two occasions two thermometer men told us our temperature was 24. Imagine that - 24? And we were standing at a checkpoint with body temperature at 24?
2. Infected people have travelled four to five hours through those checkpoints only to die on the eastern approaches to Freetown. We have no idea if the police have ever gone back to check why those people were not easily identified at any of those money-spinning checkpoints.
3. Looks like somebody is doing really good business with these thermometers. They are all over the place now. Look at the situation in parliament building: the main entrance has a thermometer and a scanner but there are a few other places where Ebola victims or Al-Queda operatives can use to enter parliament undetected, for example, through the canteen.
4. Forgive us but we are just scared that profit is beginning to overtake the need to quickly destroy Ebola.
EYELESS IN ABIDJAN BUT ISHA JOHANSEN PLODS ON WITH LAZY LEONE STARS
We can already predict the outcome of our match with DR Congo on today going by our last two matches: Sierra Leone 0 - Cameroon 4, Sierra Leone 1 - Ivory Coast 5, so Sierra Leone - v DR Congo - on Wednesday. Please help us fill in the blank spaces. Don't bring any Sierra Leoneaness into this.
By the end of this competition even the Seychelles who pulled out saying they suspected our players were carrying Ebola to their country, will be ahead of us in the FIFA ranking. The Seychelles came here and played a completely sub-standard game. They returned home before realising they can be exposed to Ebola. Hahahahahahahahaha!
Only Isha Johansen knows why she decided and was hell bent on pressing on with this competition while the nation is in the middle of an Ebola attack and people are dying in street corners. Why the government is spending so much money on a team that has clearly failed is for them to explain. Unless we stopped paying huge per diems, this vicious cycle would continue. All the fighting in the SLFA is about resources.
Our last match in Abidjan was simply a disgrace. Leone Stars are coached by men who have no record of winning titles even in the world's worst league, the SALONE PREMIER LEAGUE. Men who have nothing to lose from their team being humiliated. They have allowed themselves to be used by the SLFA in their battle against a very meddlesome Minister of Sport.
Leone Stars are making their way once again to DR Congo. This time they already know their fate in the competition so CAF would be watching for any signs of match-fixing. And they are right. The Minister and his former SLFA buddies have suspended some of our most experienced players and officials from the game, accusing them of match-fixing, a move endorsed by FIFA. So we are going into this match as suspects.
Dark clouds are gathering over Sierra Leone football. If we don't use the days following our official elimination from AFCON 2015 to clean up football, we might as well get ready to continue suffering grief and pain.
© Politico 19/11/14
