What a year 2010 was!
Well, well, here we are again at the beginning of another year of APC platitudes accompanied by the usual cock-a-hoop attitude about their successes. It was interesting listening to the SLBC’s Tea break programme on the last day of the old year. The ministers of information, energy and water resources and works and maintenance were on air. Ah, but first things first. Although 2010 was quite rough for most of us, yet we are thankful for God’s Grace and Mercy which pulled us through. I pray that 2011 will be more blessed for you my faithful readers and for me. (Photo: Dr Sama Banya)
While in Kailahun I listened to one early morning programme on CTN radio and the discussion was about the preparations for Christmas. A reporter was out in of all places, Sani Abarcher Street interviewing the local traders there, the people who occupy two thirds of the width of the street. I could not believe my ears as I listened to their comments on my Walkman transistor. They complained about poor business, about the scarcity of resources and the almost unaffordable prices. And then a few days later I was to read that EBK had been mobbed by the crowds on Sani Abarcher Street for what he was doing for them with promises to return him ion 2012. Oh Salone!
And now back to those three ministers on SLBC’s Tea break programme on Tuesday morning and to their boasts. Electricity, water etc. were to be restored to all provincial and district headquarters. Suddenly I was reminded of a play which we acted in my days in the Bo School called The Class Room, (with apologies to the New Vision columnist.) Part of it went like this:-
Teacher: Who discovered America?
First pupil: Who lost it?
Teacher: No one lost it.
Second Pupil: How could they find it if no one lost it in the first place?
Teacher, with some irritation: What I mean is that it was there.
First pupil with amusement: Who put it there?
Teacher with raised voice: How do, do the devil do I know who put it there?…
All the towns and cities named by the ministers had water and electricity before; their main streets were covered with tarmac. Yes, we had a railway system that ran from water street station in Freetown to Pendembu in the Kailahun district with a branch line from Bauya to Makeni. Whatever happened to them, who oversaw their disappearance? Yes, who lost them?
Some of IG Francis Munu’s very senior officers appear to have lost their sense of responsibility. How could they allow themselves to be used by power hungry ministers to arrest journalists when the latter have committed no offence that would attract the attention of the police? Is it any excuse for them to carry out orders that they must have known were illegitimate and yet did not have the courage to ask, “What offence have these men committed?” Does not the whole thing appear to be a slap in the face of Paul Kamara’s for-di-people newspaper or IB’s new citizen newspaper which along with the minister of information have often gloated that this country has never enjoyed freedom of expression and of the press than under this government?
As I had promised my readers I did spend a few days in constituency 04, Kissi Tongi chiefdom in Kailahun district. The people are aware that this government will leave no means at its disposal to grab the seat now vacated by the poached former SLPP (in name only) Member of Parliament. I sensed a determination in most citizens not to let that happen. Interestingly the erstwhile MP now APC deputy minister made a rather clumsy attempt to test the waters by trying to introduce retired Colonel Falla Sewa as his possible successor. May be he will report his experience to his new patrons. Those people recall the gallantry of the SLPP in the Pujehun Parliamentary bye elections; who knows whether they would not come out with their own or a slogan similar to that of the good citizens of Wanjama?
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