Mr. DMO PUJEHUN LOOK OVER YOUR OFFICE WINDOW PLEASE
Good Morning DMO Pujehun. Can we ask a simple question sir? How do you get to your office in the morning without seeing such rubbish packed so close to you? Are you turning a blind eye it or hoping that by some miracle, you will wake up one morning to see a clean backyard – rubbish gone? Come on DMO, the days of magic are gone. These are the days when people have to do things by themselves. And quickly enough.
Surely this is not some rubbish that suddenly appeared in this corner of Pujehun. This must have accumulated over a week or two. We can even stretch things a little further and say a month. We know it is not your direct responsibility to deal with rubbish but you are the DMO and this shame is in your backyard. It is unacceptable. Get up and kick some people to get them moving.
We are complaining because the last place we want to see rubbish is anywhere near a hospital. So we have nothing against you but we think this will help you move really fast. There is no Masada in Pujehun. In fact they shouldn’t go anywhere else until we are convinced they know what they are up to in Freetown.
Mr. DMO Pujehun, you are not alone in this. Look at that former Chinese hospital at Hastings. See the rubbish on the main highway close to that hospital. We’ve been complaining about that for months now but as usual, the authorities can’t be bothered. DMO Pujehun, we will pass by your office on Monday to take another look. Good Luck.
IS CIRCULAR ROAD CEMETERY NOW ANOTHER BORMEH?
Seriously we are not under any illusion about the scale of the workload confronting Mayor Bababode. We know what’s happening at the FCC. We know that basic duties like getting pigs and stray dogs off the streets looks like Bababode trying to climb Mount Everest for charity.
Tax collection is either completely mediocre or politically compromised in that the Red Movement doesn’t want to shake up the young people in this city who are not paying their taxes. So we know all that despite the fact that we refuse to understand a politician who insists on being in office while not taking those tough decisions.
We also refuse to understand what is happening to our cemeteries. Thieves are stealing from the dead openly. We say openly because we have a very good idea who the people most likely to be involved in such ghastly business are. They call themselves FRIENDS of the DEAD - a group of people who left their normal homes to go and live in a cemetery.
Apart from that, Circular Road Cemetery is slowly becoming another dumpsite. We invite Bababode to drive up the Hillside Bye-pass road from Model area, and then turn into that side road leading to Macauley Street – Mountain Cut Junction. While on that road, Bababode should look to his left and see the pile of rubbish just behind the satellite hospital. Where is all that rubbish coming from? Well we also ask Bababode to then look to his right hand and see a cluster of shacks. We firmly believe they are the ones pouring filth over the heads of our dead people. What is Bababode doing?
We will come back with more on this. Meanwhile we expect Baba to go to that place and prove us wrong.
We have a big problem with cemeteries in this country. There is a Commonwealth cemetery just back of the EGTC facility at Kingtom. It’s a lovely place. Three hundred yards away, we have the disgrace called Kingtom Cemetery. Why?
10 DAYS OF BUMBUNA: WHERE IS THIS MAN FROM ASO ROCK?
It shouldn’t depend on when anybody started counting, 10 days of Bumbuna SHUT DOWN FOR ROUTINE MAINTENANCE should be over now. We’ve gone far past extra time but EDSA is behaving as if we have just kicked-off on the first day of the 10 days of Bumbuna. The blackout situation is getting worse by the day and ASO ROCK is so quiet.
There are parts of Freetown that have gone without electricity for an unbelievable period of time. The people are complaining on radio talk shows, they are complaining in newspapers. Is De Pa listening?
We accept without any struggle that under De Pa, electricity supply has improved greatly. Same for the roads but we were assured of 24 hours supply. We still remember what De Pa said in 2007. So while we accept that things can go wrong, we refuse to understand that a 10-day ROUTINE MAINTENANCE program is now threatening to turn into 30 DAYS. Even Makeni, the GREAT SEAT of POWER is not spared.
We are waiting to hear from ASO ROCK soon. Conferences and meeting here are there mean nothing. This distraction about demolishing homes for electricity power lines in parts of Freetown is not working. Bring Bumbuna back or JICA.
FROM OUR FILES: HUMAN SKULL AS FOOTBALL - JOHANSEN'S NEWYORK TIMES STORY
The last time we heard something so comprehensive from our embattled Lady President of the SLFA was when she gave an interview to The Guardian of London. That interview took place in the affluent London borough of Chelsea...that's good to note. The Queen of Salone football said early in her reign that she didn't need the local media to become great. She has kept that line throughout the last three years. Her latest outing is in the highly respected New York Times. Well done and long live the queen.
But there are a few lines from that interview that caught our eyes and our imagination. Let's say we believe New York Times ought to have scratched a bit more below the surface. Anyway, look at this:
New York Times - "The war eventually caught up with her. She started sleeping under her bed to avoid getting struck by a stray bullet through her window. Once, she said she watched from her balcony as a group of rebel soldiers played soccer with a human head. She left the country and returned at the end of the war in 2002."
POLITICO - Frankly a lot of things happened during the war - a lot of nasty things. In fact, we believe that the full story of the brutality of the war has never been told. But we find it extremely difficult to believe that human skull was actually used by one or a combination of the fighting forces as football. Even by AFRC/RUF levels of brutality, this looks like one of those Alice in Wonderland stories people told abroad to gain asylum. And Johansen doesn’t need that. We have a few questions to ask as we go along:
1. Can Isha Johansen please tell us where in this city this grim football match took place and at which point of the war in Freetown? We need dates and place names.
2. How many fighters took part in this match? Was it a 6-a-side match or a standard pitch? Or was it just a knock about kind of thing?
3. How long did this match last? And from what she saw, at which stage in the decomposition process was this head while it was being tossed around?
4. Was the human head that of a male or a female?
5. Could it be that from her balcony she saw what looked like a human head but was actually one of those Paul Kamara “unpumpable and unbossable” balls?
Meanwhile, we have asked some of Johansen’s friends to help us break through to her balconyso we can construct a picture of what might have happened on that day in question.
(C) Politico 02/16/16
