LIVING IN THE SLUMS OF GUINEA IS A DISGRACE
Why should Sierra Leoneans allow themselves to be thrown out of slums dwellings in neighboring Conakry? In fact, why should any Sierra Leonean travel to Conakry only to go live in slums when they can easily return home and join their families and communities? We find it very hard to believe that our brothers and sisters can actually do that.
When we saw social media pictures of Sierra Leoneans being thrown out shacks near a railway line in the heart of Conakry, we felt absolutely scandalized. Apart from the filth and squalor, how come our people failed to see the disaster that would result if those bauxite trains were to derail? Disobeying repeated warnings to quit the place is also difficult to understand especially because they are doing this in another man’s country. We are used to people refusing to follow the law here but if those same Sierra Leoneans decide to do the same abroad they should be prepared for whatever came their way.
We know that things are not good for everybody in this country and some people attempt to deal with problems by moving to other places to try their luck. There is nothing wrong with people moving. We have a large Guinean migrant community in Sierra Leone but they are not necessarily found in slums around Freetown.
1. We call on the government to encourage those Sierra Leoneans caught up in this eviction thing to obey Guinean law and move.
2. We should also encourage our people to return home. It’s no shame trying and failing to strike it rich. We applaud the effort.
3. Let’s register those who can’t even afford to pay their way home and then organize a repatriation program and bring them home with the understanding that if they returned to Guinea and got caught in another eviction exercise they would be on their own. We can’t keep wasting our taxes on bring people home only to repeat the process after a few months.
IS THE SALONE PREMIER LEAGUE REALLY BACK?
On Friday this week the second half of the Sierra Leone Premier League would resume all over the country and we know that fans are now eager to pour into playing venues. Please excuse us for suggesting this might all not happen because we may just witness another postponement. The resumption of this league has been postponed twice mainly for lack of money to meet the cost of running the league.
We have seen what social media commentators call the fixture. We are approaching with caution because with only a few days to the resumption we would normally expect the SLFA to call the media and make some important announcements. This is not the case so far. We also want to note the fact that the national stadium is being closed down for comprehensive renovation. So what’s happening?
We also want to ask the Premier League Board whether the local transfer window is closed now or players can still be signed. Information is all over the place about dissatisfaction in certain clubs about the way their players have been taken from them by other clubs. We should think that all these matters should be resolved by the SLFA before the league resumes otherwise there is the risk that ineligible players would be fielded by some clubs and decisions would go against them retroactively.
There is still no confirmation that the big four clubs in Freetown would make Wusum stadium in Makeni their home base for the rest of the league at their expense. These are all questions needing quick answers.
IS THERE ANY UPDATE ON THOSE ROGUE SSL ENUMERATORS?
Some trained enumerators collected our tablets and money and caused SSL to send them to the field to simply count the good people of Sierra Leone within a given location but all they did was to chop our money and go to sleep, convincing themselves that the rest of us are stupid people. They effectively stole the tablet and some are even brazen enough to turn up at SSL headquarters to collect more money alongside those decent Sierra Leoneans who did the job even in such very difficult conditions.
We understand some were arrested by the police for questioning. The police want to know about that appalling breach of contract and the stealing of our pads and cash.
We’ve not been able to understand why any good Sierra Leoneans would behave this way and so far we could only come up with the following reasons even though we firmly believe that there is no reason for such a behavior.
1. It could well be that the vast majority of those who refused to go to the field even after collecting our money and pad are supporters of Tolongbo and they were simply giving practical effect to Yansaneh’s call for a total boycott of the process by his members. Maybe we should just add for good measure that Yansaneh actually asked all Tolongbo members not to even serve as enumerators.
2. We also suspect that among those people are outright criminals who went into the training simply to carry out the criminal enterprise that SSL just exposed.
3. We know that many of those trained as enumerators are University students. Let’s now ask very serious questions about what it means to be a University student. Honestly, society expects so much from people in our institutions of higher learning but see how disgraceful this behavior is.
4. We call on SSL to publish the full details of those rogue enumerators in at least FIVE national newspapers over a whole week. We don’t want such people to even approach public service anymore. They’ve lost their chances through laziness and partisan bigotry. We want to see them in court.
SOVULA BEWARE OF COPYCAT CRIMINAL ACTIVITY IN SALONE
Sovula should not fall asleep while criminals in this country copy what happened in neighboring Liberia recently. Our neighbors have just come out of national mourning declared by president George Manneh Weah after TWENTY NINE of his citizens, including ELEVEN children and a pregnant woman were killed at a church event.
The story is that a church in an area called New Kru Town in Monrovia was holding an all-night service when at about 9pm street gangs armed with knives stormed the event trying to lay hands on monies collected for the church and personal effects like mobile phones.
These days there are groups of street gangs known as Zogo Boys conducting sporadic raids like this to steal from ordinary people on the streets of Monrovia. So those people left their homes in peace to seek the face of God and within a few hours their bodies were in a morgue awaiting police investigation before they are buried.
We don’t yet have any example of churches being raided in this manner in Freetown or any part of Sierra Leone but we have records of gangs of criminals attacking and stealing from people especially after sporting events in broad daylight. It is this criminal activity that caused Principal to ban mask devil parades across the city.
We call on the good people of Sierra Leone, particularly churches organizing all-night prayer sessions inside church buildings or outdoors to watch out for copycat raids by our own criminals. Maybe churches doing mass all-night prayers sessions should request for police protection.
Meanwhile our hearts go out to the government and people of Liberia. God will expose and disgrace those criminals.
Copyright © 2022 Politico 07/02/22
