WELL, I AM FLABERGASTED

I am sure that I have told the story before of a class mate of mine at the Prince of Wales school who is now a distinguished international jurist, who, whenever he was taken aback with something would exclaim,”WELL, I AM FLABERGASTED!” I came back from a visit up country late Tuesday evening and going through my newspapers, a headline in the Sierra Express Media which read “Dr Sama Banya attacked” caught my attention. I thought it was the usual political attack from some opponent until I read the story written by the newspaper’s own Tafaway Tumoe. He was quoting an alleged statement from a Mr. Sahr Kembey who accused me of saying that the waterfall B-Kongor was in the Gorama-Mende chiefdom of Kenema District and not in Kono.

My amazement arose from two reasons. In the first place, I never alleged that the falls were in Kenema and not in Kono district.  Assuming that I did say so, is that the way that Mr. Sahr Kembey should react, by suggesting that my friends and family take me to see our only Psychiatric in the country, Dr. Edward Nahim? More surprisingly that Sierra Express Media’s own correspondent would simply accept Mr. Kembey’s assumption without crossing checking that Dr. Sama Banya did in fact make any such statement. 

I have no doubt that the contents of the article in question are quite plain even to a primary school kid and I have no intention of sinking so low as to take on Sahr Kembey or Tafaway Tumoe in unnecessary uncomplimentary exchanges. What I would suggest is that they both reread my original article in which even as Mr. Tumoe admits, I was only quoting from unnamed Gorama-Mende residents. Was the vulgar attack on my integrity or mental state the appropriate response for asking for comments from prominent Kono leaders beginning with the honourable Vice President Sam Sumana? Where lies the mischief in the article. Hasn’t a Sahr Yamba of Koidu town quoted extensively from my article? Was it a speculation on my part? Was I not enquiring why there was no reference in the energy sector to the B-Kongo falls IN KONO DISTRICT? What is really wrong with these people who have behaved as if they were only waiting for just such an opening to send volleys at me?

Is that what is referred  to as a PARADOX? There was our President announcing to Parliament and to the whole country that our Sierra Leone had earned the very welcome title of champion in Agriculture and Food Production, only for ActionAid international to come out with a spirit damping revelation that we were actually way down below and that starvation was looming? I reported last year that at a workshop to assess our progress in the Food Production programme of the SLPP that we had attained two thirds of our target in rice production and well over the 100 percent mark in the production of alternative foods like cassava. One of the reasons for my recent trip to the east was to find out whether our people were up to their best in farming, tractorization or not. It is amazing what bumper rice harvest we are having this year. Yes, the harvest is really ripe. However someone ought to reconcile the statement of our President who only reads what is given to him and that of an organization like ActionAid who is actually out in the field.

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