Those 419ers don’t give up at all!

Criminal characters like the 419yers never seem to give up on their criminal adventures. Over the past weekend, there was another attempt to break into my Password, but they were out of luck. They however succeeded in opening the code of a colleague of mine of the Freetown Dinner Club, but after much difficulty, I finally accessed my Password and went forth to alert my colleague.Â Â Â

It is such good news; I refer to the recent arrival of a new group of medical and education volunteers from the Federal Republic of Nigeria to supplement and in some cases, to fill the gap in our education and health sectors. As has been widely reported it is not the first time that Big Brother Nigeria has answered the call of a smaller and poorer country for assistance. I heard in the news that the scheme was inaugurated some twenty two years ago. I would have thought that it was much earlier than because my hospital in Kenema, the Nongowa Clinic and the Emma Thompson Nursing Home was beneficiary of an earlier programme. I received a young Medical doctor and his charming wife who was also a qualified state registered nurse. Those two quickly settled within the local community and the wife soon assumed a Mende name. The couple was also blessed with a son whose first name was Sama. We stayed in touch for a long time until the Sobels from Murray Town Barracks ram sacked my house and on the second occasion set everything on fire; I lost contact with them after that. Mercifully the fire did not engulf the concrete structure. The Nigerians were here again and how fortunate then to take on Foday Sankoh and the Krahn murderers of Charles Taylor’s NPFL fighters from Liberia. While the UN Security Council was having consultations on sanctions and sending Peace Keepers, the Nigerians were already making sacrifices with their lives and material resources. And do you know, Sir Jeremy Greenstock the United Kingdom’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations once queried the a military action of the Nigerian troops asking who gave them the mandate to attack? In the South-South summit in Havana Cuba, Nigeria, South Africa and Cuba agreed to provide aid to Sierra Leone in the Youth Training Scheme outside Waterloo by Nigeria, the provision of Generator by Eskom of South Africa and Medical personnel by Cuba. That is why I often go through the roof when there is general condemnation of Nigeria because of the criminal activities of 419yers and some other crooks. Why castigate a nation of 130 million people because of the action of a few rotten ones, a people who have never failed to respond to the distress call of other African states, Sierra Leone included.Â Haven’t we criminal elements like armed robbers, gang rapists and conmen in Sierra Leone? Would it be fair to lump all Sierra Leoneans as criminals and rapists? A hearty welcome to our brothers and sisters; ekusheh; ekabor. I hope my friend Mohamed Koroma and his Chief Medical Officer would post some of these people to faraway stations like Kabala and Kailahun; the latter to replace the sour-faced unprofessional Dr. Pratt who is no asset to the community. I speak out of personal experience when the young man left a semiconscious highpertensive patient on IV infusion and traveled to Freetown. Has the young man any knowledge of the Hippocratic oath, I wonder?

It is a great pity when a newspaper that had hitherto been vibrant and a leader in objectivity gradually appears to lose focus and descend into distortions, farce, tribalism and hero worship. That sadly is what appears to be happening to the for di people newspaper and its editor in chief. Paul, why don’t you and I get together over soft drinks so that you and your newspaper may benefit from this eighty something year old man?Â Â Â Â Â

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