Mohamed C. Bah – NDA Presidential aspirant

31 July 2012

I will continue to be an advocate for a better Sierra Leone, where everyone enjoys the wealth of our nation. I will continue to introduce the psychological and hidden problems – the one we never discuss openly – about the development of our future.

We always see our circumstances and challenges more or less as logistical inadequacies or intangible economic infrastructures, not the attitude and mindset of how we think or behave as a nation.

The physical deficiencies of what we need or lack are the symptoms and not the fundamental problems.

Our poverty may not be the lack of endowed natural wealth or human resources, but the prevalence of an uncompassionate mind that think so poorly as to deny the very basic welfare of our own citizens.

Thank God, Sierra Leone is not located in the desert, nor lacks the natural resources to build its own prosperous future.

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27 July 2012

In the wake of allegations and counter-allegations of corruption involving the vice president of Sierra Leone, a renewed focus is being turned on to the manner with which the government has been entering into agreement, with foreign companies to exploit the country’s mineral resources.

Sierra Leone’s rich natural resources have the potential to net the country, an estimated annual revenue of more than $600 million. But today, the reality is that ‘declared’ annual government revenue from mining companies is less than $25 million.

Poor governance, corruption and the lack of human capacity to monitor and evaluate the operations and performance of foreign companies operating in the country, are making it easier for companies to succeed in avoiding or evading their obligations to the people of Sierra Leone.

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Fuambai Sia Ahmadu

26 July 2012

Famous actresses like Angelina Jolie have become the butt of many jokes, because of their humanitarian or “good works” in Africa and other parts of the developing world.

In Sierra Leone alone, a few of the Hollywood A-listers have taken up some sort of cause or another, highlighting the plight of war affected children, of maternal and infant mortality, malnutrition and other social challenges.

Actress and producer – Salma Hayek caused a bit of a stir, when she came to Freetown and was pictured breastfeeding an African baby (she still had breast milk from her own recent delivery) and lecturing women on the importance of exclusive breastfeeding.

Some critics saw Hayek as another opportunistic Hollywood star, exploiting the issue of poverty and nutritional deficiencies in African children to buttress her own image as a “do-gooder” in the world.

A few Sierra Leonean cynics grumbled that these affluent, famous western women continue to portray African women as ignorant, always lacking in knowledge of what is good for their children and their own health and in need of enlightenment from more advanced, educated and wealthy western (especially white) women.

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Raymond Dele Awoonor-Gordon

25 July 2012

Sierra Leone’s 2012 elections are the final frontier for transcending the assumed limits of our fears and perceptions; our ethnic tendencies; our political prejudices. It is a new horizon awaiting.

The message which each and every one of us should be passing on to our kith and kin, literate or illiterate, is that the choice should not be about personalities or looks or personal deeds.

It should be about the fact that this time around, we really need to sort out our defects, which somewhere deep in our psyches, we know is the reason for our continued existence in the backwaters of underdevelopment.

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24 July 2012

“We cannot categorically state that President Koroma was aware of Sam’s behaviour. Should Mr. Koroma have investigated Sam a little more before trusting him?”

Those are the words of Mark Heiligman, the American businessman who accused the vice president of Sierra Leone – Sam Sumana of taking money from him under false pretences.

In his earlier letter to the people of Sierra Leone, published two days ago, Mark Heiligman not only accused the vice president of theft, but also extended his angry accusation at the president. He said that the president had collaborated in the scam.

In the latest twist to this shameful scandal, supporters and PR agents of president Koroma are already uncorking champagne bottles, in celebration of what they regard as a complete exoneration of the president by Mr. Heiligman.

But what about the vice president? With elections just few months away, is he being used as the fall guy, in an increasingly tense political atmosphere, where there are competing names of APC senior party grandees queueing up to become president Koroma’s election running mate? Or has the vice president slipped on his own banana skin?

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