PERHAPS SLAJ SHOULD ALSO NOW GO TO THE SUPREME COURT
We understand that two political parties have also gone to the Supreme Court with a set of eleven constitutional questions for urgent interpretation. That's beside what prominent lawyer Blyden Jenkins-Johnston has already presented to the court on behalf of Chief Sidikie. These are interesting times to be a Sierra Leonean living in Sierra Leone. People and institutions are being tested in ways they've never imagined.
We are not sure how this would happen but somehow we believe that our dear SLAJ, should seek some clarification on what the Supreme Court was actually ordering us to do with their press release about the current constitutional matter regarding the office of the Vice President that the nation is waiting on them to rule on. So SLAJ may not make a formal case against that order but it may get details which it would communicate to members like us so that we do not go around with the impression that our right to freely discuss national issues is being curtailed.
These days, anybody who wants to make even an innocuous comment or two about the Sumana case, is told to shut up and wait for the Supreme Court to speak first. What kind of democracy is this? Even in great United States, we have seen demonstrations outside the Supreme Court when the body is in session. We have also seen demonstrations outside the Old Bailey in London during crucial court battles. And those demonstrations are for both sides of a particular argument. Why should we be different to the extent that even newspapers can't now play their role of providing a forum for discussion and compromise?
We want our dear SLAJ to seek clarifications from the Chief Justice on this matter. It's very urgent indeed. There's no way newspaper articles and radio broadcasts are going to influence the decision of the fine legal minds in our Supreme Court. We want FREE SPEECH. Sierra Leone is a DEMOCRACY.
RED MOVEMENT CONVENTION IS HERE:HOW MANY DELEGATES PLEASE?
Bintumani Conference Center is a red zone today as the RED MOVEMENT assemble for an EMERGENCY meeting of delegates. The RED MOVEMENT likes big things. As a newspaper, we will be there to report on those events. Many people are saying that this meeting will drive the final nail into the coffin of Chief Sidikie as a RED MOVEMENT man. We shall see. We say so because we have this felling that Chief Sidikie could become a modern day LAZARUS and prove that miracles are still possible because the spirit of Jehovah has not departed from us all. Praise God!
Please don't get us wrong, we are only reflecting what some of the people have told us. Deep in our hearts, we believe it's the end of the road for Sidikie in the RED MOVEMENT. Time has failed to heal the divisions.
But we have a few questions for MUNU and his people regarding the fairness or otherwise of how they apply the EMERGENCY regulations. There are many examples all of the place that suspicions to the contrary are well founded. Can we get answers to the following questions please.
1. Did the police do as AL-Sheik Kamara said on radio the other day? For example, did the police assess the possibility of violence happening at this conference? Or of "bad people" infiltrating the meeting to cause violence? At least, that's what they've used to always stop people assembling or processing on the streets.
2. Can the police also make a document available to us showing how this assessment is done? It will help us as we prepare for our own events. It should be no secret. We are all Sierra Leoneans
3. Since the date of this meeting was announced, no government official has gone on radio to say that such a meeting could cause chaos and derail the peace of the country. Even the police have not issued a press release threatening to deal with anybody who disrupts the peace by holding such a meeting.
4. We have not seen soldiers going up and down the streets in a kind of show of force to intimidate people. AIG Karrow Kamara said the soldiers were deployed in a back-up role against unarmed protesters in Kenema the other day. Soldiers on our streets? We didn't see any on the streets of London during the recent riots that rocked north London. Why Salone?
ON THE ROAD WITH LOGUS KOROMA AND THE ONE HUNDRED CHINESE BUSES
Looks like the art of spinning the news has now caught up with LOGUS KOROMA. Without boring you with any long explanation, spinning is a cheap Public Relations trick that basically aims at gaining Public Relations advantage by manipulating the media.
Can you remember the first time LOGUS KOROMA mentioned those ONE HUNDRED buses from China? We have heard that announcement on radio many times. We've even heard heated discussions about the colour of those buses. LOGUS says they are RED in colour. Asked if it was another one of the RED MOVEMENT's 99 tactics, he referred to Kabbah's green buses. He should also have added that Libya is GREEN and CHINA is RED and avoid the partisan political things he engaged himself in during that particular radio program.
Anyway, the buses have still not landed. LOGUS says because of Ebola, his people can't travel to China to bring the buses home. We don't know that even government officials are denied a visa to China even in the midst of Ebola. But in the usual spin style, we suddenly saw a picture of somebody standing near some buses in a foreign country. It could well have been China; it could well have been the buses LOGUS has been talking about all this time. But what was that all about? The truth is that buses are still in China. We don't know when they will land in mama Salone.
Now, let's say the ONE HUNDRED buses arrive here tonight, then what? Please don't tell us the transport wahala would be over. Let's even say we get ONE THOUSAND buses. Here's what would happen.
1. LOGUS would surely make his way to many radio stations to continue spinning. That's as sure as daylight. Propaganda objective is achieved.
2. Movement from one place to the other would remain a headache of immense proportions. We would have people sitting in buses locked down in absolute gridlock, particularly in Freetown.
3. Every minister or deputy minister finds a way of beating traffic or getting the police to close roads down to make way for them. In a city where there are no roads and even those that are being built make no sense in terms of traffic management, what can anybody expect? The big guys would soon start asking for bus service for all their funerals and weddings. We know this country.
4. In England there are BUS LANES, the facilitate the movement of people on public transport. What do we have here? We have endless diversions and unnecessary police overzealousness. They block the roads almost one hour before the big man is due to pass by.
5. Finally, the attitude of those managing the buses, the foot soldiers inside the SLRTC is just not properly set for that kind of massive operation that require high integrity. Private people are getting ready for their big spare parts shop inside SLRTC.
GREEN MOVEMENT AND THEIR DIVIDED HOUSE: SO MUCH FOR QUALITY OPPOSITION
We have never seen an opposition party that puts so much time and energy in destroying itself than holding the government to account by speaking for the people like the Green Movement. They will be in opposition for 10 years and possibly more but they will never enter any compromise in the interest of their party and their people. They just can't stand each other. How can people trust these guys with the state, the people and their resources?
African opposition parties are known to be weak, poor and open to easy manipulation. But the Green Movement doesn't really cease to amaze us. The quality of the debate in the party is poor and unnecessarily strident, senior executive members are part of the campaign teams of mainly one person seeking to lead the party. How can others be sure their interests are well served?
Whee these people lose in 2017, the rest of the good guys in there who want to work for the benefit of Sierra Leone, would vote with their feet and the rest of us would publish articles saying there was once a party call GREEN MOVEMENT.
© Politico 30/04/15
