KNEEL DOWN AND PRAY ON INDEPENDENCE DAY
Sierra Leone is 63 years old on Saturday as an independent nation. Such anniversaries always offer an opportunity for leaders and ordinary people in this land that we love to look back all those years ago and see how much progress we’ve made since this country was handed back to us by the British. We are all doing the same this year. Of course, we have not always universally agreed on how to observe the day – that should be expected.
This year, State House has asked us to pray for our country. We have always been doing that but there’s no harm spending a bit more time with God on Independence Day. That said, we have been reflecting on some issues as we observe this anniversary and we want to share some thoughts here:
1. Let’s celebrate that we have managed to hold onto a physical space on planet earth that the UN calls Sierra Leone and under all circumstances, we are happy to be Sierra Leoneans living in our own country.
2. Our brothers and sisters that have travelled abroad, including those that have given up their Sierra Leonean citizenship still know what it means to be a Sierra Leonean. We wish them well.
3. Once again, we have another opportunity to pull back from all those attitudes that have slowed down or even halted our progress as a country. They include:
- Over concentration on politics and all the little things that come with that posture – getting political power BY ALL MEANS just to control the people and their resources.
- Going on social media all the time to say very bad things about our country. This goes especially for some of our people living abroad. The same things they so violently criticize back home are happening daily in their host country but they have no problem with that.
- We have to inject a large dose of honesty in our politics. Things are not looking good at all on that front.
- We call on ALL good Sierra Leoneans to step forward now and vie for political leadership. It’s not much use complaining daily but while refusing to step forward to help run this country. It's rough terrain but the time is now.
KUSH IN THE UNDERPANTS OF A PRISON WARDER
There’s a picture on social media of a prison warder being stripped to his underwear by his colleague to discover a load of KUSH which 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 nation outcry over the devastating consequences of KUSH smoking, we have a prison warder using extraordinary measures to take the banned substance into the prison yard.
We are the least surprised by that conduct because prisons are good business places all over the world. Our warders in Sierra 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 no matter what happens now he is prepared to switch his warder uniform with that of an inmate but he will NEVER expose his partners. Here are some issues to consider:
1. The correctional service is so important but they are a neglected bunch in all our national planning.
2. They have the important job of keeping many dangerous and desperate 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 creating.
3. The service attracts very few graduates even now 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 ONCE 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.
USAID MEDICINES FOR ORDINARY PEOPLE STOLEN IN LIBERIA
It’s not as if Sierra Leone is so clean that we are surprised that Liberians stole medicines supplied by the official US aid body, USAID to that country for their own people, it’s the scale of the theft that is spinning our head. We cannot produce evidence that will stand up in court but we know that our own central medical store is not the most secure place in the world.
The USAID report says 90% of the drugs were stolen and brazenly put on sale in pharmacies so ordinary Liberians can then buy what actually belongs to them. How can people be so wicked?
We can only imagine how long it took the Americans to investigate this massive theft and how much money they spent in the process just for the world to know that only10% of what is meant for the Liberia people gets to them.
The report is now in the world news – shaming the Liberian nation but what are the next steps.
1. Old man BOAKAI should go after those responsible and get them to pay a heavy price. They should be put in jail for a long time and the proceeds of that corruption confiscated to the state.
2. The systems and processes around handling such values things, when from donors or bought with Liberian money should be reviewed. The idea is to make it difficult and unattractive to steal from the people.
3. Close down all pharmacies that displayed those drugs.
4. Take the results of these actions to the Americans and they might resume in a few years because things have gone so bad now that convincing them otherwise with tangible evidence that the stable of corruption has been BOLTED is mission impossible.
5. When will the American or other people do the same study in Sierra Leone? Anyway, we suspect that our own greedy guys are not yet at 90%. They are definitely not too far behind.
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