ThinkTank

By Umaru Fofana

When the man who came a close second in the leadership contest of the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party declared for the ruling All People’s Congress party nearly two weeks ago, it was perhaps the biggest political news story and news storm here for sometime; probably since the Timbergate scandal that rocked the office of the Vice President.

By Umaru Fofana

By Umaru Fofana

Whenever the issue of citizenship comes up in my beloved Sierra Leone I cringe in utter bemusement and shock and even shame. How do we use the colour of a person’s skin – in this day and age – to determine their citizenship of a country especially so in which they were born. Or do we always see racism as being all about white people discriminating against black people? The usual self-pitying, navel-gazing, isn’t it.

By Umaru Fofana

Some of the infrastructural initiatives happening in the country these days are flummoxing – in a very positive way. I cannot help but ask myself sometimes why we had to leave it until now to do some basic fixings to our basic needs. I am not talking about the impressive roads being and already built. I have probably said a lot too much about that already. I am talking about the Freetown International Airport at Lungi.

By Umaru Fofana

“Game Change” is the title of a 2012 HBO political movie directed by Jay Roach. I watched it two weeks ago on an Emirates flight to the Middle East. I would usually sleep on a plane but I managed to stay up to watch the movie twice on the 8-hour flight from Accra to Dubai because of the political poignancy before catching a short sleep.

By Umaru Fofana

October 9 1997. It was just an everyday morning for a journalist in a war zone. I was pre-occupied with what to report, and wondering how to stay alive.  I had no idea that day of just how horrifically events would unfold. I was in Juba Hills, Freetown. The Nigeria-led West African intervention force, ECOMOG, was surrounding rebel positions some 30 kilometres away.

By Umaru Fofana

Under a spectacle that made many an African leader sit up navel-gazing, Charles Taylor stepped down as president of Liberia in 2003, promising “God willing, I will be back”.

It followed mounting pressure both from within and without. A rebel war in his country led by the Liberian’s United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) had intensified and was snaking its tail into the capital, Monrovia leaving the man who had first come to power through rebellion on the verge of being ousted by a rebellion.