You mean they actually danced?

I couldn’t believe it when I heard that after his Excellency’s speech at the State Opening of Parliament last Friday, that there was dancing at the old railway headquarters of the All Peoples’ Congress party. I asked what they were celebrating since we had just celebrated two years or if you like twenty four months of APC rule. Someone answered that the diehards of the party were celebrating two years of unbelievable achievements by this government. I suggested that theirs was a typical case that called for a visit to Dr. Edward Nahim and that Samuel Serry could easily make an appointment for them. Then on Monday morning I read that regular columnist of the Standard Times newspaper, the Bee. The poor insect was at a loss over the reason for any celebration seeing that there was not even a cubic millimeter of juice for a beetle like him, let alone for a whole population. I could hear his frustration as he hummed his indignation and disgust Â at the mentality of some people in this country. Here we are in a situation where all the rhetoric not withstanding, 90 percent of the population are barely existing and you had people who were actually celebrating starvation. Is that not what Brima Sannoh should properly label as “primitive loyalty in the midst of starvation?” My disbelief was compounded when I read the full text of his Excellency’s speech first in the Awareness Times newspaper and then in the Democrat newspaper of Monday October 12. Ah! October 12! The date brought back memories of some 56 years ago. It was the day that my colleague, the late Cardiologist Dr. Reginald (Regie) Eleady-Cole and I arrived in the United Kingdom to begin our medical training. We had shared the same cabin on the MV Aureole and stayed in the same “digs” (lodgings where we were provided with bed, breakfast, dinner and full weekend meals) for a whole year. Regie had been one year ahead of me at the famous Prince of Wales school.

But I have digressed. I finally laid hands on his Excellency’s printed speech later that morning. It was much the same as before except for the reference to Bumbuna when the President actually admitted that his government was “completing the hydro project.”Â Otherwise it was business as usual with the APC taking credit for the Bo to Masiaka Road, the Lumley to Tokkeh Road, the Hill Side Road, the Rogbere junction to Pamlap Road ,the Makeni to Matotoka Road among other projects. Me, I have taken a vow of silence on all these claims because den full me mot! Be that as it may, it is all for the development of mother Salone. I also have to congratulate the President for uninterrupted power supply to Sumaila town and its environs for a week except for Monday night. Bravo Ernest, Ogunade, Maude Peacock, Zubairu Kaloko and the rest of your team. We are looking forward to when there would be no “buts” when referring to energy supply in the city. But Kono with its potential B-Kongor hydro and Kailahun are not mentioned in the energy plan. By the way why won’t we wait until actual construction commences on phase two of Bumbuna before we start talking about selling our surplus energy to other countries in the sub region? Is that not what the English refer to as “counting our chickens before they are hatched?”

So much for the Presidential address. While all that was taking place the African Champion newspaper was on a different planet completely removed from reality on the ground. The paper carried some interesting quotations which I shall reproduce here without any comments, for the obvious reason that none is necessary.Â

“Obai kicks SLPP out of Parliament.” “ SLPP members mute in Parliament.” “Mass defection to split SLPP.” “ APC improves education superstructure.” (even as the President was lamenting the hopeless state of Â education under the APC.) “APC government improving peoples’ lives!”Â

Dear readers those are some quotations from the African Champion newspaper of Monday October 12. God help Salone!

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