VIOLENCE AT RED CAMP HQ AS MESSI OPENS REPUBLIC OF MAKENI
Red Camp headquarters was the scene of wild disorder last week resulting in police firing tear gas into the building in an attempt to flush out those inside and end a demonstration by Red Camp militants which had broken out following their loss of several parliamentary seats in election petitions from the Freetown area.
Several arrests were made among those militants who were summoned to party HQ by Sorgoh Yansaneh on what he called RED DAY. All this as Messi, the leader of the Red Camp, enjoys his time in his Republic of Makeni.
We are not sure we saw anything strange in the whole affair. Well maybe these days we have live TV and social media platforms are widely used. So everybody got a picture of what happened, depending of course on who shot the video and what they wanted to show.
Everybody agrees that there has to be another way to conduct politics in Sierra Leone. So let’s see:
1. Running away from every opportunity for dialogue is very unhelpful. The time is now for politicians from all parties to come out of their trenches and dialogue.
2. This is time for real leadership to be displayed by political leaders on all sides. Calling supporters to the streets every time people don’t agree with certain decisions is not very correct. Such extreme measures are applied when dialogue fails or is blocked. In this case we know people are refusing to talk, or to accept democratic decisions.
3. Maybe the intention of some in the Red Camp was to have an event like that and then milk whatever propaganda advantage it provided locally and internationally. Maybe not. We find it really difficult to see the advantage to encouraging such demonstrations almost on a weekly basis.
4. Let the conversation about the future of the Red Camp begin now. Let nobody hide behind such constant street protests to continue with 1970s propaganda tactics as a means of winning power.
5. The image of Messi enjoying imported beer in his new republic while all this was happening doesn’t look good for him. We hope that picture came from the archives.
OVERZEALOUS POLICE? YES. SO LET’S PREVENT THAT
We’ve seen a lot of critical comments about the police with regard to the way they handled the demonstrations at the Red Camp HQ. It’s normally the easy thing to do in such situations. People have called the police unprofessional, politically-motivated, brutal and all that. Well, maybe they were unprofessional on the day in question. Maybe they fired too many tear gas canisters into the building. Maybe they should have stood by and allowed the Red Camp people to block off the road, burn car tyres all day and cause hell for their neighbours and pedestrians. Would they have been spared critical comments like those mentioned above?
The point to be made is that there are many ways to prevent the police from being mobilized and unleashed for action like it happened last week. Once they are deployed, their decision-making is solely targeted at dealing with the situation and making those split seconds decisions to save their lives and those of other people. This is bound to be fraught with overzealous conduct and genuine mistakes. So we should stop the police getting involved with matters that can be handled by other means such as:
1. Get the necessary clearance for such protests under Public Order laws cherished by both political parties. They have used portions of that law to jail journalists many times and have resisted calls to reform it. So it remains the law of the land.
2. Should anybody decide to go ahead with a demonstration anyway without clearance from the police, then they should go about it peacefully by not disrupting traffic and the lives of other people. It will be fun and the message will still get across.
3. Let’s train the police well and let’s also tell people to respect the law. Political parties should be national institutions that behaved in such a way that people will feel really proud to be part of them.
4. A simple dialogue with the police to help structure demonstrations in such a way that they didn’t get out of hands would help greatly. All the time!
5. To go in search of a propaganda victory as ordinary people lose petty businesses or suffer the pain of confronting tear gas is wrong. Avoid collateral damage.
MOUNDS OF CLEANING DAY RUBBISH ON STREET CORNERS: ARE WE ON TRACK?
We believe that there are many people who are asking this question quietly: Is the National Cleaning Day on track? Well we know it takes place once every month and the government allocates a huge chunk of taxpayers’ money to the effort. And to be honest we have seen a lot of improvement with garbage collection and disposal. But since that big argument between the former Deputy Minister of Local Government and the Mayor of the Sun, we’ve not been clear as to who is in overall charge of the National Cleaning Day. So we need some help here with that. We also need some help on the following issues:
1. For how many years are we going to be doing National Cleaning Day? We thought this was some interim measure to deal with the mess that was Freetown that in fact brought us two large scale floods in as many years.
2. Are we not sure that for some people it’s the photo opportunities with the big guys and those selfies that create the wrong picture of what is happening on the ground and indeed the cash that brings them out at the start of every month?
3. Why is it that 48 hours after the end of the exercise we still see mounds of rubbish at critical junctions in Freetown, completely blocking off roads? Why?
4. Are we truly sure this is the most sustainable way of keeping Freetown clean?
5. When will this politically-correct project that puts the primary responsibility of keeping our environment clean on the government and not on the individual citizen?
JOHANSEN’S MEN CALL FOR PEACE BUT ON WHOSE TERMS?
We are getting information that some of the few people who remained loyal to FA Queen have been calling for peace and reconciliation in the wake of the high court setting her free of ACC corruption charges. Please note that we have not said the Queen herself is looking for peace. We can even argue that those calling for peace now may not have her blessing in the first place.
The SLFA, including all its members who will be electing the next president of that body, are very badly divided. Johansen knows that! In fact she worked out the sums long before anybody thought about it.
The day she puts herself up as a candidate at a properly convened congress will be the day she says good bye to Kingtom. So why call a congress to provide the machete with which you are slaughtered in your own abattoir?
The stakeholders should now work up to her as president of the SLFA to ask for a roadmap taking them to an elective congress. The Queen’s mandate ended long ago! By some cruel manipulation of the codes and FIFA’s love for instability, she has remained in office. If SLFA was a country, it would have exploded into political turmoil and possible street to street combat to get the president to respect the constitution.
So we’ll see where the peace overtures take us. Just another big international stunt would dash all hopes. Meanwhile, we warn that any attempt to disrupt the best football league in many years in this place would leave the people with no option but to once again vote with their feet. This time for good.
SLRSA DECLARES NO-PARKING AREAS BUT ISN’T IT DÉJÀ VU?
We wish SLRSA well with their not-so-new plan to ease congestion in the CBD by declaring a number of streets No Parking, No Waiting areas. We have seen many such operations in the past with different organizations leading them – the police, City Council, traders unions and so on. Now SLRSA wants us to believe they can clear the streets having put together a coalition involving all these different units. We will watch closely to see how it goes because we are keenly interested for these reasons:
1. The CBD is today totally impossible. There are just too many cars and too many street traders spreading their wares all over the place. We know people have to survive but how do you really make a living selling razor blades and rat poison?
2. A huge number of petty thieves have also flooded our streets mingling with the traders. They are carving out undeclared NO-GO areas for ordinary people. They are breaking into cars and distressing people in broad daylight.
3. We have a group of boys now occupying the parking spaces with rotten tyres and anything they can find. They collect monies from people parking in those spaces instead of City Council getting all that cash.
4. Some of these boys live on the streets to protect these parking spaces from which they make a living. The consequences of them living there are available for all to see. Let’s not spoil your breakfast with details.
5. The military helped clear Lumley and we understand they will be involved in this project also. We wish them well but let’s stop bringing them into such matters.
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