Quite a week it was!

It started on a sad note on the Saturday before. I lost one of the most amiable, caring, friendly and generous brothers, Morie Banya a former employee of Barclay’s Bank and the Bank of Sierra Leone. His death is being mourned by his family and very numerous friends. It was in honour of his Memory that Puawui did not appear throughout the week. May His Soul Rest In Perfect Peace. (Photo: Dr. Sama Banya)

The news of my brother’s death was followed by news of a Cabinet reshuffle. A reshuffle which many pretenders had claimed was imminent more than a year earlier than it happened. This confirms what I have always believed that the many editors and others who claim to have inside knowledge of the state of Ernest Koroma’s mind are mere speculators.

All I concluded when I saw the final list of ministers was “much of the same” and I have since decided that the exercise could better be described as a merry-go-round, not even a musical chairs. At last and after bending backwards in praise of the President and in accusing the rest of us as cannibals, tribalists, coupists etc. Paul Kamara has now received his reward. His newspaper which pretends to stand for the peoples’ right to know the truth and yet lies with impunity has become a minister at last. The for-di-people newspaper did not hesitate to announce that the Foulah community in Sierra Leone was recruiting thugs to send to Guinea to make sure that the election result in that country was reversed in favour of the Foulah candidate. Even as he was spreading his dangerous lies, the candidate conceded defeat. Mohamed One Drop and Sheik Kamara must not give too. Having failed in his quest to be chairman of the President’s Youth commission, we shall now wait to see what innovation he will bring to the ministry of youth and sport I must express my dismay at the method that his Excellency used to nominate JBD and Bobor Sawyer as ministers. Is that how he previously treated the PMDC nominees? Was his Excellency or his advisers unaware of the SLPP’s declared position about participating in an APC cabinet? Has his Excellency therefore done this to spite the opposition? Benson Sowu of Kenema could not match his own sister in a political contest but H E may have been advised that he would bring in all of Nyandeyama section of Kenema to the APC? It was a pity that the President was not in the country to witness the performance of his nominee MP from constituency 04 in the Kailahun district on SLBC Telivision. That was quite an entertainment and a taste of things to come, performance bond or not.

The African champion newspaper gloated that a prominent SLPP member had commended the President’s nomination of the two SLPP members; I carefully read the article twice but could not see the name of any “prominent SLPP member” although I did come across the name of Professor Septimus Kaikai and wondered whether it was to him that the editor referred. To Philip Neville and disappointingly to my admired Umaru Fofana, President of SLAJ. I ask , when, since going into opposition the SLPP has clamoured to join the APC cabinet. We have religiously repeated that we have no such desire to join the APC government so why should we rejoice? To be inclusive we ask for the inclusion of APC members from the South-East and I could name quite a few without including any members of our party. What his Excellency has done is nothing short of political poaching or throwing a dormant cat among versatile SLPP pigeons. Both he and his nominees will be disappointed with such unprecedented irregularity.

I hope the APC members of the Parliamentary Select committee will advise themselves on the question of a criminal conviction during their hearings. Is it qualified?

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