For more funding of ABC Secretariat – Port Loko Residents Heavily Task Government

The residents of Port Loko have on Monday June 18, 2012 during the interactive session of a one-day sensitization workshop that was organized by the Attitudinal and Behavioural Change (ABC) Secretariat at the Port Loko District Council Hall on the ‘Relevance of Political Tolerance to Peaceful Co-existence, National Cohesion and National Development’ described the Secretariat’s role as a vital one towards the socio-economic and political advancement of the country and have strongly called on government and her development partners to release more moral and financial supports to the Secretariat and its attendants.  l-r (Chairperson of the programme Mrs Patricia S Donkoi Kamara, and Guest Speaker Madam Raugiatu Nenh Turay)

According to them the Secretariat’s assignment to transform the odd attitudes and behaviours of Sierra Leoneans, though realizable, is a daunting task that does not only demand a proficient human resource capacity but also a huge quantum of finance.

The blunt inhabitants of Port Loko District, in all probability with the mannerism late Bai Bureh’s outspokenness, challenged that if the ABC Secretariat is not given its required necessities to be in a position to engage all Sierra Leoneans irrespective of their age, sex, culture, locality, religion and political affiliation the future of the country the claimed would gloomy.

In his submission the Deputy Chairman of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) party in Port Loko District, Mr. Steven Tamba Senesie registered his admiration for President Koroma’s astuteness in noticing that without the overhaul of the negative attitudes and behaviours of Sierra Leones his ‘Agenda of Posterity’ will be totally unachievable. Thus he commended the ABC Secretariat, which President Koroma established early in 2008 to effect these psychological changes, as up to its task especially in the area of engaging communities and institutions as on how it is imperative on them to rebrand their public images.  He further thanked the Secretariat for spearheading the campaign against the possible exhibition of political violence in the coming November 17 Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Council elections. He conjectured that the ABC Secretariat’s sensitizations will in a lot of way help in putting a stop to political violence which has been a feature of Sierra Leonean politics since the late 60’s. However he went on to declare that the involvement of the Secretariat is suppose to go beyond their present scope, because in his view the pervasiveness of odd habits are more entrenched in the family, traditional and religious settings.

Mr. Senesie expatiated on the need for government to add more weight on the current financial status of the ABC Secretariat. This he said cannot be done without the collaboration of development partners. He therefore called on foreign investors and non-governmental organizations to provide the ABC Secretariat invaluable assistance. These overseas interventions he said are necessary, because according to him without a positive change in the attitudes and modifications of citizens’ behaviours the missions of foreign investors and more so the numerous non-governmental organizations operating in the country  to unleash communal, money-making and political developments   would not be feasible.

Mr. Usman Kamara underscored that kind of attitudes and behaviours Sierra Leoneans normally portray are influenced by several factors and mentioned their family backgrounds, economic classes, working environments, political climates, educational standards, religious and cultural beliefs as typical causes of negative attitudes and behaviours. Against this complex background he conceptualized that for the ABC Secretariat to be in a position to effectively extricate these bad manners and inject inspiring ways of doing things in the citizenry there a need for the Secretariat to be fully empowered; a responsibility he said is mainly the government’s own. The ABC Secretariat he went say must be giving the full backing by the government to become institutionalize like the Anti-Corruption where it could be given the powers to bring to books individuals who consciously manifest negative attitudes and behaviours at the detriment of national progress. Urgently enacting the operations of the Secretariat he said must be seriously considered by the government, because in his belief most citizens are obstinate to the inculcation and maintenance of positive attitudes and behaviours since they are in the known that there are no attached punishments when professed. Against these happenings he encouraged the executives of ABC Secretariat to be courageous in their assignments since according to him the changing of people’s attitudes and behaviours is a complex process that requires a considerable stretch of time more so when there is the constraint of limited resources.

Adding soberness to the Port Loko inhabitants’ request on government to give the ABC Secretariat commensurate funding     like other purposeful institutions the Chairperson of the sensitization workshop, Mrs. Patricia Forki Sonoi Kamara thanked the new ABC Secretariat executives for decentralizing their operations. She informed that unlike now the Secretariat in spite of appreciable funding used to despise inhabitants beyond the administrative hub of Freetown. She enticed government to fully fund the new executives because according to her the current Executive Director and National Coordinator, Dr. Ivan Ajibola Thomas and Madam Nanette Thomas respectively, are fully committed to their assignments as compared to their predecessors who he said professed bad behaviours by misappropriating the Secretariat’s finances. On this note Madam Sonkoi Kamara pleaded with  the business community whose assistances to the ABC Secretariat were plundered by its former Executive Director and National Coordinator to have trust in their successors as according to her they are a force to reckon with.

By Momoja Lappia

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