SOCIAL MEDIA UNDER ATTACK: LONG LIVE THE BERATER
The BERATER has announced that this government will soon launch a war on social media – the government will track down people posting critical comments of De Pa and his government and bring them before a court. From what we know, should those people be brought before a court, they would surely wind up in jail.
We are still waiting for the details of this major attack on free speech but we must signal at this stage that we are ready to take a critical look at this gift from Canada, delivered by the BERATER with love.
We have concerns about how many people use social media all around the world in the context of privacy and decency but we are prepared to continue living with this new reality because this is the 21st century and to think that we will ever return to the Siaka Steven era Sierra Leone is just as unrealistic as hoping De Pa will do a third term.
As we wait for the details of the BERATER'S plan to rid social media of comments critical of the government, we've been trying to figure out what the new ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA command center would look like in practice.
1. First off, it will be hosted at a spacious room away from Youyi Building. The BERATER will probably recommend a building we know so well somewhere around IMATT.
2. There will be about a dozen people working there, seven men and five women sitting in front of trendy Mac/Apple computers with headsets, using Chinese-made technology to eavesdrop on our conversations and our SMS exchanges.
3. The BERATER will come in every evening to review their work and then pass material on to De Pa and eventually the CID, for arrests and prosecutions.
4. The staff at this new ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA command center will all be very committed Red Movement people, vetted by Marine House.
5. They will be well-paid to stop them selling out at some point. The BERATER's budget for this operation we cannot speculate about right now but we know what such budgets normally look like.
Please, dear readers, this is mere speculation by a newspaper. Don't take us seriously. Just that we have lived in this country for so long that we can almost tell the next moves following every such big announcement. Besides, who knows if this center is not already in operation? Please be careful with your recruits...some are Red people but they are fed up with the relentless clamping down on free speech in this country since 2007.
TROUBLE AT SLPP HEADQUARTERS IS NO NEWS ANYMORE
We have reached a point at which as a nation we have to ask for the return of German Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke. He visited Sierra Leone twice in the war years to pray for peace. Many Sierra Leoneans thought he was a powerful preacher and his prayers helped our leaders negotiate an end to a disgraceful civil war.
If we manage to bring the Man of God out here this time, it will be to pray for the main opposition party, The Green Movement, which just can't be at peace with itself after nearly 10 years in opposition. They really need prayers.
1. Disagreements and even occasional violence are an inescapable part of the human condition but when every disagreement leads to combat and destruction of property and reputation, the combatants must seek the face of God.
2. What is really difficult about meeting in a room and agreeing to remove the larger-than-life portraits of a defeated former party leader from party buildings so as not to create the impression he was the only guy around?
3. What is really difficult about treating a former leader with respect and not causing his supporters to feel humiliated?
4. Why is it that whenever the Green Movement takes one good step forward, it suddenly engages reverse gear, going back miles and miles from where it started out?
5. At one moment they are laying the foundation stone for a regional party office in unison. Next moment they engage in open combat over some narrow understanding of what a leadership contest is, inevitably calling in riot police with whom they have a frosty relationship.
We shall ask Bonnke to pray for the Green Movement to think about other party matters for a while, completely forgetting this FLAG BEARER talk.
SALONE: A COUNTRY OF PRESS RELEASES AND CORNER TALK
There's always a very predictable response to serious national questions in Sierra Leone these days. In fact, the real point is, nobody does anything about festering wounds until it becomes unmanageable. At that point all those who ought to have noticed that the nation was about to be injured begin to issue one press release after the other, basically saying the same thing. At that point too it becomes a question of who issues a press release not the substance or timeliness of it.
The situation with the Auditor General's report on the management of Ebola funds is a good one to reference here. The ACC issued a press release from the outset saying they will scrupulously monitor the funds just when people started expressing concern about possible mismanagement. They then went to sleep only to wake up when the Auditor General's report came out. Not bad, but where were you ACC? One strong action by the ACC in those early days might have saved us all the wahala now associated with the report. Anyway, we wish them good luck in their "collaboration" with parliament in this investigation. That public spat between the two institutions was clearly avoidable.
Since then, we have seen all sorts of press releases from all kinds of organisations. Most of these organisations were hanging in there snugly behaving as if things were fine, going on TV daily, praising De Pa and describing critical voices as unpatriotic. Now they can feel the pulse of the nation so they have joined the bandwagon.
The story of Sierra Leone will never be complete without a whole chapter being dedicated to how sycophancy and the love for short term gains conspired to make this a sorry country.
LIBERIA REOPENING BORDERS: HOW SHOULD WE RESPOND?
Liberia's land borders have reopened. The impression that creates is that Liberia has slowly brought itself out of self-isolation caused by the Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 3,000 people in that country alone. Sierra Leone is not far behind in terms of Ebola deaths and far ahead in terms of infections. Schools have reopened and Liberia is smiling again.
Well Liberia's border may be open with Guinea and Ivory Coast for people to go in and out, but what is the position here? So far we have lifted some travel restrictions inside our country but are we going to allow Liberians to come through Pujehun and Kailahun just now? It will be a huge risk to take. And we call on De Pa to keep those borders closed, firmly closed. Here's what we think is going to happen with this Liberian move:
1. Traders from both sides are going to bring a lot of pressure to bear on our police and customs officers to allow trade and cross-border movement.
2. Even when the Liberian side was closed, we had our doubts as to whether closed borders actually meant closed borders. Our security forces are now almost certainly going to compromise.
3. There will be questions about the reasoning behind keeping the border with Guinea open while the Liberian one remains closed. Liberia has done very well, even better than Guinea, we believe. So why close them down?
4. Inevitably people in Sierra Leone will start asking for the Public Health Emergency regulations in totality to be lifted immediately. In a democracy, people get easily tired with their civil liberties being locked down endlessly.
5. There's just the risk of the bold action in Liberia reversing the Ebola war in Kailahun, Kenema and Pujehun. May be we should all just agree to marginalise this disease for now, live with it and gradually win the war.
© Politico 24/02/15
