By Hajaratu Kalokoh
Tangais, the month-long festivity which was meant to showcase Sierra Leone’s art, culture and lifestyle, has been thrown into disrepute after a display of nudity last week. Video footage on social media showed a man and a woman at a booth seductively dancing with each other whiles naked.
Tangais is an annual event that is held from the 1st of December to 1st of January. The festivity has been organized by popular cultural group, Freetown Players International since 1994. The month-long event is normally done within the perimeter of the National Stadium.
The booth where this incident occurred is owned by Natmills Business and Investment. A salesperson at the booth, Adepuju Manley, explained o Politico the circumstances behind the incident.
“On that day while she was parading, she got attracted by the music playing from our boot and she started dancing with a guy. This attracted a huge crowd and people started recording her on video,” Manley explained, referring to the unnamed woman in the video.
There were reports that police raided the booth and arrested four ladies who were also salespeople.
Politico visited the booth on Wednesday to know what has been done since then. Organizers of Tangais have since condemned the act.
Tutie Hafner, Director of the National Tangais Festival, told us on Wednesday that they were on the verge of closing the boot.
“The lady is in police custody and I don’t have much to say about this. And we are about to shut down the boot. We are doing it today. We were not aware of it and when we knew about it from then we decided to punish them by closing the booth,” Hafner told Politico in a telephone interview.
Amid Kamara, a member of Freetown Players, said: “I have been participating for three years and this is the first time such has happened. Normally we conduct dance competition for both children and adult but not for the purpose of nudity.”
Kamara added: “This lady has the tendency to influence other women and girls in to prostitution and cheap fame, not knowing that she is destroying the image of the country because there are foreigners with us.”
Zainab Jah, a Gambian businesswoman with a booth nearby, said she saw it all and had to complain to the Police leading to arrest of the woman.
“I was here and saw her walking nude and dancing. I went to the Police post and told them to arrest her because this is not good for the country and she has demoralized the value of women here,” she told Politico.
Jah said there were general security concerns among businesspeople, regarding the safety of their business.
There is a mobile police post within the stadium. It is normally erected during Tangais to take care of security concerns. Businesspeople say it hasn’t been effective.
“We have problem with security, even this morning some thieves stole from one of the boots next to the police boot. The police boot is not helping us. They are selling drinks and alcohol and food. The other day a girl was robbed close to my boot and the police could not do anything about it,” explained Ms Jah.
Politico have since tried to contact the officer in charge of the Police post at the festival, but he has not responded to calls or a text message.
Owners of the booth where the nude dancing took place have since taken responsibility and were pleading with organizers to spare them.
“We are pleading with the stadium management because this is business. They should come to our rescue. I will admit that we are also at fault because we should have not condoned her to dance in front of our booth,” Manley said.
Copyright © 2019 Politico Online
