CHRISTIANA AND HER MANY BODYGUARDS – CAN WE WITHDRAW THEM NOW PLEASE?
The number of soldiers we see around the NEC boss these days frightens us a bit. The number and quality of the troops should be enough to re-take Goma town in D. R CONGO from the ruthless M23 rebels in less than half an hour. We want our Electoral Commissioner to be safe at all times but why are the soldiers so many?
You see, we think Christiana is enjoying her time in the limelight - the whole country stopped to listen to her on Thursday; journalists trying to interview her are always dribbled with ease like Lionel Messi going past Rio Ferdinand. Look at what she did to those IRN journalists who were made to wait for five hours only for the Queen of this republic to read a few “chieftaincy” results and leave without saying sorry for her unacceptable lateness. Does she realise we pay her salary? She thinks Sierra Leone will die without her. Christiana is like a judge, making laws as she goes along – remember her definition and re-definition of “ORDINARILY RESIDENT”?
When we grow up we would like to be Electoral Commissioners because our names will be on everybody’s lips, we will have a nice office (with a leaky roof even though our own room will not get raindrops), our budget will not be audited particularly if we announce the “right” people as winners in all elections we conduct; we shall be a little brusque, even arrogant; we shall boss our staff around; we shall violate our own laws without consequences and above all we shall behave like PRESIDENTS for ten days every five years by refusing to announce election results even when they are clear to everyone.
The greatest job of all indeed!
THE POLITICAL RECAPTURE OF SIERRA LEONE’S DIAMOND LAND
May be one of the activities in the election campaign that the SLPP will forever regret is the final campaign rally they organised in Kono. We say so because the people of that “swing” district demonstrated on that day that they could give Chief Sidikie a bloody nose on November 17. The Chief was rattled. He called De Pa and told him they needed to do something urgently. De Pa told him to draw up his battle plan to recapture that restive ground.
Chief Sidikie wrote his thesis titled: The Pacification of the Restive Tribes of the Northeast. His budget was as large as the entire content of VAULT NUMBER ONE, at one of our top banks.
The thesis was so well written and budgeted that funding was approved without question.
Chief Sidikie went into action and, but for God, the whole SLPP executive and their candidates would have defected to the ruling APC at midnight on November 16.
The results from Diamond Land proved that Chief Sidikie is more of a strategist than Norman Schwarzkopf of the first Gulf War. Well done Chief Sidikie. The European Union has written the FOREWARD to this book. The final chapters will be written not too long from now.
The SLPP should learn a lesson from this: Don’t always display your arsenal for your enemy to see ahead of combat. May be that’s only relevant for 2017.
NATIONAL DANCE TROUPE POLLING STATION: THE GREATEST OF ALL
Now, let’s put all jokes aside and take the Dalai Lama’s complaint seriously. A presidential candidate goes to a polling station near his home with his family to cast their ballot; they stand in the long queue like everybody else (Not like De Pa and Osuofia who got preferential treatment); they complete the process, return home to wait for the result. When the results are announced ZERO is entered for him, according to him. How is that possible? Do you now understand why we believe this polling station is the greatest of all?
The PMDC are calling for a nationwide recount because they suspect there are many other such polling stations in other parts of the country.
As Sierra Leoneans, we shouldn’t make any mockery of democracy. The Presiding Officer at that polling station must explain.
We can even say that The Dalai Lama’s family didn’t vote for him, that’s as unlikely as Barak Obama losing an election in Chicago or even visiting Sierra Leone as president of the US. It will be totally impossible to say that the guy didn’t vote for himself. Well may be he didn’t. He probably thought it was another run-off and he was putting PLAN B to work by voting for De Pa.
Anyway, let’s ask Christiana to investigate The Dalai Lama’s claims. They are serious.
DID AYATOLLA SISTANI ACTUALLY DELIVER A BALLOT BOX?
The PMDC, the party that suffered the most losses in the last elections has accused GRAND AYATOLLA SISTANI, the man who was expelled from the party he wanted to lead as presidential candidate, of meddling too much. He is accused of taking a ballot box to a polling station. We haven’t heard from him, well nobody has heard from him recently, so we don’t want to convict him based on The Dalai Lama’s statement but by means of Speculative Journalism we are free to try and understand why he is accused of behaving out of character. Here’s what we believe may have happened:
1. He found the ballot box in question abandoned by a completely demoralised Presiding Officer at Regent Road junction, Lumley and as a good citizen he decided to take it to the polling station for
voting to begin. HEHEHEHE.
2. Sistani saw a huge crowd at the polling station and realising they would need another box, he rushed to the NEC office on Tower Hill to get it. That’s the same box PMDC are complaining about.
3. Or it could well be that he was on his way to a last minute mopping-up campaign when he saw stranded NEC officials at about 09:00 trying to get to the polling station in question. He helped them with their boxes and papers only to be misunderstood by the PMDC.
That, to us, demonstrates how confident and enthusiastic the new APC convert was about De Pa winning and for him getting his reward for betraying his own party which led to his explusion. Well done Sistani- Diamonds Are Not Forever.
MOBILE PHONE MASTS AND FREETOWN’S SKYLINE
No matter who takes over at the Ministry of Communications, they will face a problem we have been pussyfooting around with for a long time. Mobile phone masts are springing up all over the place and we have reason to believe that the only consideration that informs their location is how strategic they are to enhancing the communication needs of customers of the many mobile phone companies. We have seen such masts near schools and in heavily built up places. Guess where we’ve seen one recently; it’s inside STATE HOUSE, to the north of the president’s office, near the Sam Bangura building. We don’t know how that particular one will affect communication inside State House but we think that State House is the last place for any company to put up a mast for commercial purposes.
If that mast is not for State House use exclusively, please pull it down now. These companies are so brazen. Who gave them that permission in fact? With all these masts, the service is so poor and all NATCOM can do is issue one press release after another.
We have seen demonstrations against such masts being located near schools and dwellings in many countries but in Sierra Leone, the masts are being erected without concern for radiation and possible cancer. In fact radiation or no radiation, cancer or no cancer, that mast inside State House must be pulled down now.
By the way, we want to inform Siray Timbo that all networks are still bombarding us with unsolicited text messages weeks/months after NATCOM issued that lame statement against that unnecessary interference with our privacy. We hate those messages let them please stop sending them to us.
© Politico 27/11/2012
