WE FINALLY HAVE A CABINET: BUT TONGUES ARE WAGGING
De Pa finally named the last members of his team last weekend. Boy! It’s been a long wait. Since his re-election last November, De Pa has been slowly putting together the team that will make Sierra Leone a land flowing with milk and honey.
We have already said a lot about the cabinet since the first list, sorry the SECOND one, came out weeks ago so we really can’t find anything riveting to say about this final list. Besides there are no surprises. We got the leaks long ago about what De Pa would do. He hasn’t disappointed. There are some interesting recruits to the government about whom the nation will learn a bit more soon.
We at Politico have some good friends on the list. Here:
Alimamy Kamara – He is leaving parliament to become a minister. Kamara is a strong man with a sense of purpose. We have a lot of respect for him and we believe that with all things being equal, De Pa will find him a very useful minister. His new cabinet job is a tricky one though and he needs all the support available to make any significant impact on the young people of this country. We warn our brother that expectations are high and he should avoid trying to score cheap political points in the course of executing his assignment. There is a massive difference between serving the youth of the APC party (as Youth Leader of the party) and as Minister of Youth. He needs everybody’s support.
Peter Bayuku Conteh – He is another great appointment made by De Pa. He is incorruptible, as far as we know, but he has some serious shortcomings that we must watch. The proposed minister of tourism is someone who thinks he alone has all the answers. He is firm and is not afraid of annoying the whole ministry or probably the cabinet over the most trivial of issues.
We also have to watch him for his unique sense of self-importance. As District Council chairman of Koinadugu, he insisted on playing the national anthem on radio before doing his many radio addresses to his people in as much the same way SLBC would do to broadcast a speech by De Pa. That will be totally unacceptable in Freetown. He is a man of ideas though and the ministry staff should expect to work hard.
Pope John Paul stays in place, in part. He has had the youth portfolio taken away from him but he is still in charge of sport with that unnecessarily talkative former youth activist as his deputy. The combination should be interesting. The Pope can now finally be bold enough to get to grips with his job. We urged him to do so last week after waiting for long without De Pa naming his ministers. The airwaves will continue to rock to his fiery interviews and his banning orders against any Sierra Leonean who dares question his actions. We can safely suggest that by the end of this year twelve people, including four journalists will be banned from entering the National Stadium.
Should Isha Johanson lose the SLFA presidency, the acrimony will reach unprecedented proportions and the Pope will be in the thick of things as always and in all ways.
We note that initial reactions to his re-appointment show he is overwhelmingly unpopular even among his colleague journalists and the sporting fraternity. What matters now though is that De Pa has asked the Pope to continue and we wish him good luck.
We also note that the already large government is having a larger cabinet, hence our democracy is becoming very expansive and too expensive. De Pa apparently doesn’t owe us an explanation as to why the cabinet is this big. No problem. As ordinary citizens, we can only ask that we get value for money.
WELL DONE SOJA BUT HAS DE PA FORGOTTEN THE REST OF US
We hope our soldiers really enjoyed their Armed Forces Day break from work. This country has a very interesting history with its soldiers – the “defenders of our constitution”. Can we however call De Pa’s attention to some very pressing issues? Can De Pa also declare the following holidays in respect of the other noble professions? We are all members of the Sierra Leone society.
National Holiday for Journalists – 3rd May – Sir, we are very loyal citizens. During the war we fought on the side of the citizens of Sierra Leone. So while from time to time our criticisms cut too close to the skin, you should understand we are a part of the human mosaic making up Sierra Leone. Up with Sierra Leone Journalism!
National Day of Nurses or Florence Nightingale Day – It makes a lot sense to reserve a day for nurses and other health workers to reflect on their services to humanity. The nurse are found at points where humanity is at its lowest so let’s imagine how much of a morale boost this holiday will be for our health workers.
We shall suggest many more holidays for other professions in the coming weeks. We believe De Pa will consider them favourably as we implement the Agenda for Prosperity.
KAN KAN KAN LECTURES THE MEDIA: WHAT’S THE TOPIC AGAIN SIR?
We are getting used to ministers trying to lecture us on how to conduct our journalism. We don’t understand why they are always so tempted.
The other day Momodu Kargbo of the finance ministry went to a Commonwealth media conference and opened a whole lecture on the media’s handling of sources. Put the quality of the lecture aside, when we put his speech through the most basic search engine we discovered very easily that it was plagiarized in the first place. Why did he feel compelled to?
Now Kan Kan Kan has launched his own media school and is teaching Journalists who turn up at the ministry for those boring news conferences to be “objective”. We are waiting for your own definition of the term sir. This is an issue we will be returning to for as long as Kan Kan Kan remains in that ministry so we give him all the time he needs to figure out his response. You have many friends in the media. Let them help you through.
In the meantime, will Kan Kan Kan explain to the whole nation, how his police bodyguard came to be killed in Guinea towards the end of last year? The man was hurriedly buried and we haven’t been told what actually happened in Guinea. We deserve to know the truth. What is the status of that investigation on both sides of the border? We are tired of asking Munu who’s dying for people like us to shut up on this issue. We will not. That’s more pressing than lecturing journalists on how to source their stories. See you soon sir.
ANNIE WALSH SCHOOL BECOMES A POLITICAL MERRY-GO-ROUND
We are well and truly now on our way to answering the question of whether Annie Walsh Memorial Secondary School will be relocated from the east of Freetown to the mountain village; and that, crucially, its former site will be taken over by petty traders from Guard Street and Sani Abacha Street.
A very interesting press release came from De Pa the other day trying to “clarify” some of the comments on social networking sites and on radio in particular. We notice that the drafters of the press release used all upper case letters and we were encouraged to think it was about emphasis, but we were told in high school that when people do that they are angry and are therefore talking down on those they are addressing. Was that the case with this release?
Anyway, the release says this: “INFORMAL DISCUSSIONS WERE HELD BETWEEN HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT AND A VERY SENIOR CLERGYMAN OF THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE WHO CONFIRMED THAT PLANS WERE ALREADY AFOOT FOR RELOCATION OF THE SCHOOL, AND EXPLAINED THAT THEY WERE CONSTRAINED BY THE HUGE FINANCIAL OUTLAY INVOLVED…”
POLITICO – Well, we now know that the clergyman in question was the same man we told you about not too long ago. He was the guy who treated the late Cannon VJ Hasting-Spaine in a shabby manner, refusing to give the late man a funeral service befitting a man of his stature. Many church members complained bitterly but our man ignored them.
In his usual form, he has now misrepresented the whole Anglican Communion and look at the reaction and embarrassment he has caused both the church and De Pa. May be De Pa should no longer consider the currying for that diplomatic retirement job to Israel.
“IT IS PERTINENT TO MENTION THAT CONTRARY TO WHAT IS BEING RUMOURED, GOVERNMENT HAS NEITHER PRESENTED THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE WITH A FAIT ACCOMPLI, NOR HAS IT GIVEN ANY INDICATION THAT IT INTENDS TO SUBJECT THE SAID PROPERTY TO COMPULSORY ACQUISITION.”
POLITICO – Again we blame this clergyman for creating this mess. In recent times people have used all routes to get to power and we blame De Pa for failing to see through such deceit and naked hypocrisy. In fact he seems to have basically rewarded such people. In the newspaper world, we say WATCH THIS SPACE. Our clergyman could still end up in Tel Aviv as our Ambassador to Zion.
We will take De Pa’s statement as it is for now but all journalists are taught “never to believe anything until it is officially denied”.
