A Journey to a Utopian Clean City
The unpleasant voice from the megaphone hits the streets of every corner of the Utopian City
Chanting and eulogizing the development-driven pilot of the Flight to the Utopian City
Despite the fact that the citizens of the Utopian City now pay taxes that the city
has never known: Sneeze-hard tax, Fart-loud tax, walk-loud tax,
Fat-body tax and many other taxes that should make the city an earthly paradise
Yet the City is a nightmare, a health hazard and a death trap
The bosses boast of bringing development to the Utopian City
And point their corrupt finger at their achievements:
Look at the Utopian Clock Tower at Eastern Police,
Look at the market we are building for the business Utopian City
Look at the roundabouts we have decorated
Look at the utopian beatification of the roundabouts
and the utopian Fountains of Hope
that the Cotton Tree is now enjoying
Wow! the utopian city is so beautiful like the first Daughter of Angel Gabriel
The City is ineffable, they unashamedly claim
But the citizens of the Utopian City ask and ask whether the billions of
Leones their City has collected achieved only those few great trivialities
The people of the city are disappointed that the money
they pay to the Utopian City are spent on the
development of the Big Bugs of the City
They are angry because their city is the now
One of the dirtiest in the whole world since their city Father fathered the City
The Utopian City uses all unorthodox, sometimes illegal, ways to get
money from even the poor in the guise of taxes
in order to embellish their own pockets and leave the Utopian Citizens to bear the brunt
of the rot, squalor, decay, pungent smell, smoky atmosphere and all other related
situations that act as recipe for a reduced life span
When there is little downpour,
go to Kissy Road, Blackhall Road, Eastern Police,
Ferry Junction, Jomo Kenyatta Road,
Mountain Cut, Benjamin Lane, Fourah Bay Road
and all major street s in Freetown
The “undrainaged” Utopian inhabitants are drained in all the rivers of Sierra Leone:
River Moa at Eastern Police
River Sewa at BlackHall Road
Great Scarcies at Jomo Kenyatta Road
Little Scarcies at Ferry Junction
River Teyay at Fourah Bay Road
While the empty hopes of the people of Utopia swim in
These rivers
the tinted jeeps of our leaders drive in them with scornful ease
and wave the plight of their subjects away in absolute abandonment
They say those who do not pay “their taxes” are unpatriotic
But why should you pay money when the “Tu Fut Aratas” are not patriotic enough
To spend the money to improve the lives of the people who pay it?
Instead they spend the money to improve their own social and economic lives
While the streets are still imbued with all the eye sores they propagated to clear
The barks of the Utopian City are indeed worse than its bites
The drainage in their developmental brains is wholly blocked
No wonder they cannot provide better drainages for the people of the Utopian City
that will drainage their lives into a better future.
Mohamed Kunowah-Tinu Kiellow, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The author is a Dutch-Sierra Leonean lawyer who recently returned from his beloved Mama Salone after having worked there as a Legal and Policy Adviser.
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