Total solidarity, or is it?
I have to give it to the members of the recently established Guild of newspaper editors which event took place in the Sahara hotel in the city of Bo in Southern Sierra Leone. At the end of their deliberations the Foundation President, the AWOKO newspaper’s own Kelvin Lewis read out what was dubbed the Sahara Declaration. This in itself was laudable and I had expressed my relief that the Guild was not set up in competition with the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists SLAJ. (Photo: Dr Sama Banya)
I am informed that among other decisions the members admonished themselves to refrain from personal attacks against each other or any other actions that had a tendency to expose others to ridicule and scorn. I must again duff my hat to the gallant gentlemen and ladies for holding on to that voluntary resolution although I am not sure how long it would last.
In many conferences and other organized gatherings, there are usually fringe incidents, many of them planned, but a few do happen spontaneously, that is if one accepts that there is any such thing as a spontaneous fringe event or accident. Although others who are used to calling things by their names would describe such episode as an embarrassing scandal. But trust the Guild; their solidarity was so effective that neither the tiny stinging creature that calls itself the BEE of the Standard Times newspaper, nor the “oldest creature on earth” the great EAGLE of the African champion newspaper respectively has breathed a word about it to its readers. That is what I would describe as professional solidarity or would a herd protective instinct be a more apt description?
It was an incident in a guest house along Tejan street in the township, now a city where I spent most of my formative years. I could just visualize the front pages of for-di-people, the Torchlight, Peep, We Yone and the Standard Times newspapers in the unlikely event that it had involved Dr. Sama Banya, more popularly known as Puawui. For now that is where the story will rest mainly out of consideration for solidarity with the Guild. But how true the saying that “People who live in glass houses must not throw stones.”
This brings me to what I would describe as a “MERRY-GO-ROUND” affair. Two days ago Olu Ritchie Gordon referred to me in his Peep newspaper as a liar; no, he went further by giving the impression that I was a constant liar. He also referred to me as “DR. DEATH.” Perhaps it didn’t occur to Olu that those were hard words to use on an old man even if he happens to be a dinosaur.
Interestingly in less than 48 hours Olu’s erstwhile friend and employer Paul Kamara has undressed Olu in a manner that only one who knows another in and out would use. Among other things, he has referred to his former friend as being dishonest and even christened him with the name OLU LISK GORDON. With friends like these who needs enemies?
Puawui can only sit back and smile at some of the ways of the world.
In the meantime whatever has happened to the recent Sahara Declaration of the Guild of newspaper editors? Will it hold I now wonder?
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