WHAT’S THE LATEST WITH THAT KUSH-IN-UNDERPANTS PRISON WARDER?
We saw the picture on social media of a prison warder being stripped down to his underpants by his colleagues to discover a load of KUSH which we were told he was attempting to smuggle into the prison yard. Obviously he wanted to sell it to inmates. People are outraged that even with a State of Emergency in place and a huge national outcry over the devastating consequences of KUSH smoking; we have a prison warder using extraordinary measures to take the banned substance to a prison yard.
We suspect that prisons are good business places all over the world. Our warders in Sierra Leone have for long been smuggling cigarette, marijuana, mobile phones, letters from all sorts of people and more into that prison. The young man caught with KUSH is definitely not alone in that deal and we were hoping that by now he would have switched the uniforms of a warder to that of an inmate but he will NEVER expose his partners. A few months have gone by and we haven’t heard a word from the correctional service after announcing they had dismissed those involved. We make bold to repeat what we said again about the situation in this country’s correctional service.
1. The correctional service is so important but they are a neglected bunch in all our national planning. Take a look at the budgetary allocations made to them yearly.
2. They have the important job of keeping many dangerous and desperate people away for long years so we can have peace and sleep with both eyes closed but we don’t easily address their concerns. Just take a look at their uniforms and get the picture we are painting.
3. The service attracts very few graduates even with high unemployment. We are not saying graduates won’t smuggle KUSH into the prison yard, our point is about the caliber of people recruited into the service all the time. We have to look at that.
4. We notice that in just ONE strike, FOUR warders have been sacked over that issue. It’s a good message to send out but if those robust checks continue over the period of the State of Emergency, more than ONE HUNDRED officers will be sacked. Trafficking stuff into that prison is good business.
5. We must significantly improve the salaries and other conditions of service of our warders. That will put them in a situation where they will consider the consequences of summary dismissal against the little things they collect from prisoners.
WHY DID TD BRIMA STAY AWAY FROM SOUTHERN ARENA?
In driving rain, the people of Bo City celebrated well into the night as their football club – Bo Rangers kicked their way into history as the only team outside Freetown to win the top flight league THREE times in a row. It was their inspirational Executive Chairman, Babadi Kamara who had a dream about making Bo Rangers a power house of football in Sierra Leone and Africa. He then set about putting the structures in place to move a directionless team from their seasonal struggle against relegation. Today, Bo district and the whole southern region have a team that Africa knows about. Anyway we wish them all the best.
So why did the president of the SLFA, TD Brima not turn up to hand over the trophy? His friends are all over social media trying to explain his NO SHOW but its difficult not to conclude that his absence was definitely connected to the fact that BABADI KAMARA is challenging him for his job and given the way things are going now, TD Brima is looking extremely vulnerable.
The trophy was indeed passed on to Bo Rangers by the highly respected Harold Nat-Johnson. For now we can only think about the following reasons for TD Brima’s absence:
1. He didn’t want to share the same platform with the man threatening his hold on power. He will deny this but as journalists our thoughts are allowed to roam free.
2. If TD Brima had gone to the beautiful surroundings at Southern Arena, he would have been forced - even for the sake of courtesy to say good things about Babadi Kamara. He didn’t want to put such an appearance in the hands of bloggers and journalists.
3. Maybe he was paying attention to the final game of his team’s shambolic season against relegation-threatened FCC. That match ended in disgrace, caused by the most mediocre referring we have ever seen. As we write the last relegation place has still not been decided. It is the same story with the FA Cup.
4. TD Brima didn’t want to be roundly booed by sometimes uncontrollable fans. At least, that’s what one of his sympathizers told us. The people of Bo Rangers won the league week ago so they really didn’t have time for that. All they wanted was to party.
5. We hope TD Brima doesn’t perform another NO SHOW at his own congress. There is still a NO SHOW at the SLFA headquarters as the place remains under lock and key.
THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING AFTER 32 YEARS
We were told recently that the Russians were returning to Freetown after more than 30 years away. According to official government statements the Russians will build the embassy and help with our ENERGY AMBITIONS. That’s according to our minister of foreign affairs. This ENERGY AMBITION thing was then quickly interpreted as Sierra Leone planning to go for nuclear power like war torn Burkina Faso. The government itself has done very little to clear things up. It remains in the minds of many Sierra Leoneans now that we will soon get nuclear power. Why they are allowing such obvious half-truth to continue circulation is for them to say.
We are a very welcoming nation so we have no problem with Russians reopening their embassy here. We have a long history of Russia training our doctors in Siaka Stevens’ days. The number have reduced but they are still training some.
However, we want to say the following before they sign papers to send an ambassador over to start work in Freetown.
1. They should not drag us into their SUPERPOWER struggle with the West over UKRAINE. We cannot afford to get sucked into that kind of fight. We are too weak to receive blows intended for other people’s faces.
2. We don’t want a single WAGNER soldier on our soil. Let the Russians keep them in the Sahel. Many years ago Burkina Faso under that rogue called Blaise Compaore actively sponsored RUF rebels who killed thousand in this country. We want to be at peace with ourselves and our neighbors.
3. We are not yet ready to kick out those people who stayed with us all those years when the Russians were gone from our land. We are not those Sahelian nations that are busy cutting their noses to spite the faces.
4. Having said that we will gladly receive cheap or FREE OIL. There is no harm in that as long as joining the UKRAINE war on the side of Russia is not made a condition for FREE OIL. We can also do with some grains. Welcome Russia!
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