The Coat Is Not The Man

Wesley Secondary School Segbwema

I once had a teacher in Wesley Secondary School,Segbwema called Mr. J. B. Fobay. If my memory serves me right, he taught English. I heard he is now retired and is a big man in Njaluahun Chiefdom politics. I never knew what J. B. stood for and never asked. People may ask why I never bothered to know my teacher's real name. The answer is simple; educated men from my area just love to be addressed by their initials. It could be a Segbwema or Njaluahun thing. Educated women are always addressed by their full names; Mamie Aruna, Betty Kallay, Massah Kanneh, Nguanya Konuwa-Massaquoi, etc. Men from that area just have a fondness for their initials. Segbwema people will easily recognize the following people, JOB, JTJ, KPG, SJB, JB Fobay, IK, etc. Now that I come to think of it, most of the people with fondness for their initials from Segbwema seem to have an affiliation with Wesley Secondary School,it could be a Wesley thing, I do not know, but it stimulates my curiosity. However, we also had DA Ngombu from Holy Ghost, it kind of nullifies my hypothesis.

J. B. Fobay once told a classmate of mine who thought he had asked a brilliant question. "Boy let me tell you this," JB said, "it is better to look like a fool than to open your mouth and confirm it." Thinking about the incident now, I think JB was wrong. That type of statement discourages students from speaking out in class and restricts their intellectual development. But that day, maybe JB just could not help himself. Sometimes some statements are just so stupid that the best thing to do is just be brutally honest and tell the person that spoke them, at least to save them future embarrassment. So I am going to be very honest with APC's Karamoh Kabba. If someone told you that you are a very good writer, and that encouraged you to be writing on the Internet for world consumption, then I would not call that person your enemy, but neither would I call him your friend.

Empty Suit

During the period of the PMDC euphoria in Sierra Leone, Karamo Kabba was a name I frequently heard from my PMDC friends. I always thought the fellow was a sort of intellectual heavyweight and I had an unproven and unjustifiably high opinion of him. After reading the following article by him in one of the ubiquitous daily breeding APC propaganda outlets, I felt as deflated as a football sized balloon attacked by a very sharp 3inch nail. http://salonesledgehammer.com/maada-bio-a-continental-liar-lied-again-in-canada/

I read the article three times, thinking that this could not be written by the same Karamo Kabba that I had heard so much about from my PMDC friends. The word Karamo means teacher in both my native languages and all the Kabbas I have met are clever people. I hoped the article was a practical joke on Karamo, because last I heard he was a top guy in APC. If it was really the same Karamo Kabba that wrote this, then Sierra Leone must be headed for Armageddon, if these are the people running that country or acting at any top level in the nation's administration. If these are the people president Koroma has reached out to, in order to show some semblance of diversity, then he must be playing a practical and very cruel joke on the people of Sierra Leone.

I may not know the educational credentials of Karamo, but I seriously doubt them. If he studied in America as it is claimed, I would love to know the college and the year of graduation. Karamo starts his article by dubbing Bio as a continental liar. I do not know the distinction between a liar and a continental liar, but I am sure the term continental cannot be a synonym for international in this context. Who knows, Karamo appears to be a wise man, he may be thinking abstractly. If Bio is a continental liar because he was interviewed from the continental hotel, then we now have Bintumani and Mammy Yoko liars too. Given the numbers of hotels in the world, do the math and go figure.

Not All That Glitters Is Gold

From the first to the last paragraph, Karamo's so called article is an excellent example of writing sense and meaning nothing. Take the following statement in the first paragraph of Karamo's exemplary work. He writes about Maada Bio, "He has been very busy undermining the joint effort of the people’s rebranding process of their country since the end of the civil war in 2012." What the hell does this mean? I have tried to cut the sentence into bits, but cannot understand what "the joint effort of the people's rebranding process"means. I showed this sentence to an Iraqi friend of mine who was a refugee from the days of Saddam Hussein. The friend stated that in Saddam's days, writing like this would have led to life imprisonment.

Karamo writes of an interview he purported Maada gave in a hotel stating he had constructed 600 to 700kms of road to other countries and EBK had constructed only 3 to 4kms in the "face of the people in Freetown" Karamo. He, Karamo, claims that EBK has constructed over two thousand kilometers of highways and many thousands of trunk and feeder roads. Now given that Sierra Leone is just a few hundred kilometers across, the country must either have the most extensive collection of roads of any developing country in the world, or Karamo is a charcoal pot calling an electric kettle black. Karamo is trying to prove that Maada is lying by telling a greater lie. If this was the same fellow that had an accident in which the only thing that got injured was millions of government Leones going missing, then we could safely add lying to Karamo's thieving and describe him as a lying thief. That is no new breed in the APC, many were there before you small Kabba.

Karamo also stated that Bio was forced to admit collective guilt for Strasser and S. A. J. Musa's decision to execute 29 people accused of a coup plot against the NPRC in 1992. Does Karamo ever read. How many times had Bio not stated that the only way he could be faulted for any thing that happened that tragic day was his being a member of the government. He was not the president, the vice president or minister of justice at the time. He was just a member of NPRC like Karifa Kargbo, Idriss Kamara, Kindama Kargbo, Tom Nyuma and all the other members of NPRC who are now APC members and hence presumed innocent.  The only thing that makes Bio guilty in the eyes of the APC is that he has decided to run against Ernest Koroma. For years, APC did not give a damn about Bambay or any of these other people. 

During the AFRC junta period, thousands of Sierra Leoneans were killed by the depraved AFRC elements, yet look around the current government and count the number of active AFRCs that are part of this government. Was Bambay any better than the thousands of innocents who lost their lives in the country? Is one life better than another. The same Bambay and others accused Francis Minah, a sitting vice president at the time of his involvement in a coup of which he was to become vice president, and hung him like a rat in Freetown. Did anybody ever question why anybody, even a stupid one, let alone an educated lawyer, would be vice president and make a coup to become vice president? Did anybody ever listen to Minah's plea of innocence. The death of Bambay and others was a grave injustice, but as I say, SAJ Musa may be dead, but the president at the time is alive and well in Freetown. The justice minister is probably in Freetown too, why not go Strasser's village and demonstrate. It is this hypocrisy that is appalling. Guilty if you are not APC, but innocent if you are.

Karamo states that Maada Bio travelled to North America in Montreal Canada. Now I have gone to Canada and presently reside in North America, but where the hell is North America in Montreal Canada? I am no student of geography, but should Montreal not be in Canada which is in North America? Is it now possible that Karamo Kabba is a lying thief who does not even know primary school geography? What is it about APC that provides this attraction for the mentally challenged. It is like a man who is always unlucky to fall in love with women of loose morals or a woman who always has the bad luck to date hopeless men. Looking at the picture of Karamo in his clean cut suits, I am reminded of the saying, "not all that glitters is gold" In this case, it may not even be brass.

I was patient to read Karamo's entire article which was a direct and frontal assault on intelligence. After reading the terrible piece, I was rewarded with a massive headache that could not be relieved by a dose of two 500mg tablets of Tylenol. The article gave me migraine and left me no wiser. I was also told that you read to learn, but reading to unlearn, this was a first. It was at the end of Karamo's hopeless article that he saved the best for last and finally proved that Essa Thaim Kurugba is not the only illiterate intellectual doing the APC rounds.

 In his conclusion Karamo wrote the following which I will quote directly to avoid any further migraine. He writes about  Bio, "But rather he spoke down to the people copiously in a third person narrative as an innocent by-sander of crimes. The truth of the matter is Mr. Maada Bio’s attempt to pick a peck in the eyes of others when he had a peck in his own eye is simply stupid" What in Jesus' name was this bloke trying to say? What is pick a peck is his own eye or even in anybody's eye? After reading the sentence my head was aching so badly that I could not tell if somebody picked a peck or pecked a pick. All I could say was that there was either a pecking or a picking, or a picking and pecking. Honestly I do not know and do not even care, my headache is driving me bonkers.

Karamo is like some of my friends in primary school who will show the extent of their intellectualism by asking you to spell shokolokobangoshay. They would be giddy with pride if you missed even one letter, as it proved they were more intelligent than you were. I have an advice for Karamo. There is a school in Murraytown called Grammar School. Those boys may be small, but smart. If you are ashamed to take your articles to adults for proofreading, take it to them. You do not have to tell them your name. This international manifestation of ignorance however has just proved that you are a mere clown in a suit. I do not know who to blame, you or the person who published the newspaper. Fellow, I guess JB Fobay was right after all, "It is better to look like a fool, than to open your mouth and confirm it"

And to claim that NPRC overthrew a democratically elected government? Was the APC government of Joseph Saidu Momoh a democratically elected government? Who did he ever run against? Papa Karamo, add history to geography as another challenge and while you are at it add mathematics as your calculation of thousands of kilometers just does not jive. I know APC likes to claim that they do not look at a person's education when making appointments, but appointing this guy to any responsible position is a crime against the people of Sierra Leone, a felony. To think that this was one of the fellows Charles Margai would have made a minister if PMDC had won?..................Wow.