Dr. Ben Weller Passes On.

Dr. Ben Weller

 Benjamin 'Ben' F. Weller, age 69, passed away on April 15, 2012.

 Ben Weller was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, (West Africa) on February 28, 1943. He is preceded in death by his parents, Benjamin and Nellie Weller.

 He attended the Albert Academy (Sierra Leone), Rutgers University (Camden, NJ), University of Winnipeg (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he completed his PhD in Political Science. Ben was very interested in world politics. In his life, he attended conferences in numerous countries; Italy, Germany, North and South Korea, U.S. State Department, and other parts of Africa. In the mid 1990's, as part of his PhD coursework, he taught politics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He also worked at the Department of Multicultural Affairs for the University of Wisconsin-Madison while completing his dissertation. For 13 years, prior to his retirement in early 2011, Ben worked as a Policy Analyst for the State of Wisconsin in both the Departments of Workforce Development, & Children and Family Services.

Ben Weller was the founder and first president of the Wisconsin Chapter of the Tegloma International Federation Inc, the largest indigenous Sierra Leone nonprofit in the world and became Vice Chairman of the federation. In recent years he curtailed his involvement in Tegloma activities.In 2000 Dr. Ben Weller brought Sierra Leone musician Steady bongo to Wisconsin http://steadybongo.com/us-tour-2000.htm  A Tegloma delegation led by the the administration and board chairmen will travel to Wisconsin tomorrow to grace Dr. Weller's funeral.

Ben Weller is survived by his wife of 37 years, Koso, and daughters Jeneba, Amy, and Nyalay Weller. Sisters; Mrs. Beatrice Ajibade of London, Mrs. Elizabeth Fergusson-Nicol of Zimbabwe, brother, Prince Weller of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Nieces; Adele Temple, Layo Ajibade, Lisa and Lorna Fergusson-Nicol, and Elizabeth Weller, nephews; Franklin and Rupert Cole, the Wellers of Virginia, Maryland, Moyamba, and Freetown, and in-laws; Mr. and Mrs. AJ Williams & family in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The Bakarr family in Wales U.K., grandnieces & nephews and a great grandnephew. The Carew, Brewah, Farmer Joker, Fofana, Pieh, Sillah, Yaskey families, the AWA, AAM, Oluwole, Academy of Old Boys Association and friends in Madison and abroad.

Dr. Weller

A funeral service will be held at ASBURY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, 6101 University Avenue, Madison, on Saturday, April 28, 2012, at 10:00 a.m. with Pastor Harold Zimmick presiding. Burial will follow at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison. A visitation will be held at CRESS FUNERAL HOME, 3610 Speedway Road, Madison, on Friday, April 27, 2012 from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. and at church on Saturday, from 8:30 a.m. until time of service.

The family would like to thank the staff at St. Mary's Adult Day Health Center, UW Hospital, Nazareth Health & Rehab Center, and Asbury United Methodist Church.

Happy 51st Anniversary Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone, happy anniversary as an independent nation. We know the past 51 years have been tough on you, but though you may have heard this before, better days may be ahead. You have done a lot for your children. You have provided us fertile land to grow our crops. You have filled your rivers from Moa to Scarcies with fishes of every kind for our consumption. You have provided us fertile palm trees to provide us palmoil for our food and palm wine for our entertainment. You have filled our plantations with cocoa and coffee to sell and send our children to school.

You have provided us mineral deposits in abundance. You have given us diamonds so beautiful they have become the envy of the world. You have given us gold, bauxite, rutile, iron ore and now we have heard that you want to add crude oil as one your abundant blessed gifts to us, what can we say, but thank you.

You have given us the best weather anywhere on earth. We are plagued by neither the extremes of heat nor the extremes of cold. All year long we can walk on the streets of Segbwema and Freetown with songs in our hearts and a spring in our step. We do not know drought or famine. Every year you give us so much rain that we sometimes pray for you to send some to the poor people of Somalia and Ethiopia.

You helped us build good schools, from Wesley Segbwema to Saint Francis Makeni, Bo School to Grammar School, QRS to Methodist Girls High, Njala to Fourah Bay College you have help teach your children the knowledge and skills to go forth in the world and make the sky their limit. From academia to the United Nations your children have excelled. 

You have given us great men. Milton Margai, Siaka Stevens, Sorie Ibrahim Koroma, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, Davidson Nicol, Arthur Abraham, Eustace Palmer, Lightfoot Boston, Cyril Foray, Strasser King, Salia Koroma, Bai Bureh, James Jonah, Salia Jusu Sheriff, Abdulai Conteh, Akiwanda J. Lasite, Modupe Taylor Pearce, Isaac Wallace Johnson, Kandeh Yumkella,Sir Banja Tejansie, David Kekura Jimmy Jajua are all sons that have made you proud and shown the best you can offer to the world. 

You gave us great women trail blazers; Madam Yoko, Sallay Satta Gendemeh, Yasmin Jusu Sheriff, Shirley Gbujama, Zainab Bangura, Constance Cummings-John, Ella Koblo Gulama, June Holst Roness, Elizabeth Lavalie, Amy Kallon, Isata Nyambe, are all daughters you should be proud of.

You have done all that a mother can do to provide for her children and yet still today we continue to wallow in poverty, destitution and despair. We continue to sleep hungry, to cue for fuel, to have banks deny us our own savings. Some of your sons have over the years repaid your generosity with callousness, corruption, stupidity and greed, and for that we are extremely sorry.

The past 50 years we have failed you. Instead of coming together to build you, we have thieved and warred. Those in power have fallen prey to the temptation of easy money and loose women. We have fornicated, whored and engaged in adulterous behavior. We have stolen and lied. We have burnt and coveted each others property and attacked and murdered our brothers. We have hacked the limbs of the innocent and smeared their blood on the faces of the streets of Freetown. In essence we have sinned and through you we ask the Almighty God for his forgiveness and patience.

As we enter another tumultuous period in our history, we pray to the Almight God for divine guidance. May he expose and shame those who are planning evil and mayhem. Just as we have dragged our malevolent neighbor Charles Taylor to justice may we also accumulate the evidence to lock up any human being that plans evil in your land, no matter which area of the country he is from or what political party he belongs to, as before party there was you, Sierra Leone.

Give us the strength to expose wrong and the audacity to speak to power. Give us eyes to see evil when it occurs and the voice to talk again. No longer will we sit in silence and see others doing wrong while we go to our Mosques and churches and wait for your intervention. We will use our cellphone cameras to record wrong and use Facebook to expose them.

Sierra Leone Happy 51st Anniversary!

Nyuma's Big Welcome to the Empty Streets of Kailahun

People waiting to  Welcome Nyuma

A few weeks ago, a high level delegation of the ruling  All peoples Congress Party (APC) of Sierra Leone, made their way through the torturous eastern terrain and horrible Kenema-Kailahun road, one of the most neglected and dangerous roads on the face of the earth; sometimes called "hell's highway, to present Sierra Leone Peoples Party ( SLPP) turncoat and now APC strongman Tom Nyuma to the people of the town of Kailahun, where he is the current SLPP district chairman. Tom Nyuma is one of the newest entrants into the SLPP wing of the APC, currently populated by such high profile SLPP defectors like Dr. Lansana Nyallay of Tegloma fame, Joseph Bandabla Dauda, Tom Nyuma himself and most recently,  the garrulous ex-Ambassador John Leigh.

APC supporters being bused into Kailahun

Tom Nyuma it can be recalled, was a major player in the 1992-1996 National Provisional Revolutionary Council (NPRC) regime that chased the then APC leader, Rtd. Major General Joseph Saidu Momoh out of power and the country, on the unusually cold and cloudy morning of 29th April 1992.

The NPRC coup, which  then president Momoh dismissed as a minor event by a group of disgruntled officers and men in the Sierra Leone military and other malcontents, was welcomed with jubilation and enthusiasm after years of APC misrule characterized by corruption, nepotism, runaway inflation, blackouts, national insecurity, low military morale, high unemployment, insane income inequalities, leading the United Nations to classify Sierra Leone as the poorest and most miserable place to live on the face of the earth.

Main APC Delegation arrives

Captain Valentine Esegrabo Melvin Strasser, who was hastily installed as the coup leader was showered with tremendous adulation. He became a local  folk hero and his portrait and that of his other fellow revolutionaries was ubiquitously painted across the streets of Freetown. Prominent amongst the 1992 military coup leaders in terms of sheer force of character, courage and physical presence were Solomon Anthony J. Musa, Tom Nyuma, Karefa Kargbo, Komba Kambo, Julius Maada Bio, Charles Mbayoh, and of course the leader Valentine Strasser. Other less notable military figures included Idriss Kamara, Abdul Karim Kamara, Fallah sewa, Mani, and others.

After the war, Tom Nyuma left military duty and found his way to America, where he generally maintained a low profile, until he was sent back to his homeland in dubious circumstances. Nyuma went back to Sierra Leone, destitute but with name recognition was resuscitated by the opposition SLPP who did not want a popular son from the party's eastern base to be moving around town in dire straits like his former boss Valentine Esegrabo Melvin Strassser. In 2008 SLPP gave tom the party symbol to contest for the District council chairmanship of Kailahun district, an election he won by a landslide.

Kailahun APC supporters waiting for Nyuma

Since Tom Nyuma became district council chairman though, things have not been smooth. As opposed to the days when they were ministers and had permanent and administrative secretaries do most of the work while they moved around in new cars attending ceremonial functions, the work of District Chairman was an administrative job for which Tom Nyuma who was more a fighter than a thinker was supremely unqualified. News from Kailahun was that he was way over his head and did not know what he was doing most of the time. Tom Nyuma was never the brightest bulb in the room, but the post of district chairman was not one that appealed much to him. He still yearned for the glory days and started to hang out more with APC folks, though these same people had flogged him so severely in 2007.  Leatherboot, a former subordinate of Tom Nyuma's who later joined the infamous murderous West Side boys, led the team that flog Tom Nyuma in a hotel in Bo so badly that it was a miracle he survived at all.

Tom Being Given State Ride to the event

Tom Nyuma's head was swollen after the beating and many people believe he must have received some traumatic brain injury that was not properly treated, as he started to behave more erratically after the incident. Tom Nyuma started to have major problems with the SLPP when he started to cavort with APC power players, including president Koroma. The problem came to a head when he was presented with a brand new Rover truck that SLPP members thought was a sort of bribe by the APC to Tom. The opposition SLPP vocally derided Tom for his close alliance with APC folks. Tom Nyuma grew increasingly disillusioned and distanced himself more and more from the SLPP leadership and became chummier with the APC leadership.

Tom's head swollen from gun butts and boots
was his brain injured?

So Tom's announcement that he was leaving the opposition for the ruling party came as little surprise to political watchers and commentators. The loquacious and rude editor of the Awareness Times opinion rag, Sylvia Blyden, had even predicted Tom's move.

Tom Nyuma flanked by APC supporters bused into town.

So the APC delegation sent in truck loads of supporters and expected to make a major show in welcoming Tom Nyuma to Kailahun as APC! Alas, most of the people of Kailahun may have never gotten the memo or did not even care. The only people present to welcome Tom Nyuma in his new capacity were some young fellows who thought APC had brought food and money to share and those who knew that not being there would cost them their government jobs. Most of the people just kept away from the spectacle. The Segbwema blog correspondent stated that though the delegates managed to put a brave face on, Tom Nyuma became ill and was unable to speak at the event. Later loads of APC guys brought to the event managed to create a semblance of a crowd around the area.

Tom was later given a vote of no confidence by the other district councillors, but he is still hanging on to his post, as the ruling party which he now supports will not let him be kicked out of office.

Interior Minister Tarawally
Vowing to shed opposition blood in November

Many human rights watchers are watching Tom Nyuma and documenting his every move as the ruling All Peoples Congress has brought in millions of dollars of arms and ammunition into the country in preparation for the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, and the interior minister has publicly claimed over BBC focus on Africa that the arms were brought into the country to target the opposition. Tom Nyuma has a gross propensity and reputation for violence and it is feared that APC will use him to carry create mayhem in the Eastern Region this year.

More Sierra Leone Independence Pictures

Police Playing Nice

Commissioner with the people

Everybody dancing to My area

Beautiful Decorations

Mohamed and Hassan Listening

Pastor Sowa in holy mood

Keynote Speaker Dr. Gary Johnson

Attentive Audience

More Scenes from Sierra Leone's 51st Anniversary in minneapolis

Juldeh Jalloh MCing

Dennis Bango thinkind about Sa lone Politics

Massah Sheriff looking cool

Fadima Jalloh looking cool

Margaret Ayers in charge of the slide show

Lahai Ansumana promoting Sa lone

Joshua Murray  friend of the police

Safia Kamara 

MC Sarah Cassell doing her stuff

Keynote Speaker and Wife Jeanne Ayers

Sierra Leone Independence Comes Early to Minnesota

MCs Juldeh Jalloh and Sarah Cassell

The Sierra Leonean Community in Minnesota (SLCM), celebrated the West African country's 51st independence anniversary from British colonial rule yesterday April 21, 2012 at the East Side Neighborhood in Minneapolis. Sierra Leone gained her independence on April 27, 1961, with Sir Milton A. S. Margai as the first Prime Minister.

Cross section of  Audience

SLCM is an umbrella organization formed to foster unity in the Sierra Leone community and cuts across regional, tribal  and political lines.

 Having seen the necessity of celebrating certain milestones and organizing certain common functions like a country community rather than fragmented groups, the following organizations; Kono Union, Tegloma Minnesota Chapter, Sierra Leoneans in Minnesota (Sierrasota), Sierra Leone Aid initiative (SLAI), Sierra Leone Union (SLU), came together to form SLCM.

The Sierra Leone Community in Minnesota, which should be a model for other Sierra Leoneans in the diaspora, assists Sierra Leoneans with information services, immigration, health and wellness, education and promotes the history and culture of the country.

Mothers listening

This year's celebration focused squarely on rural health care in Sierra Leone. The Keynote speaker was Dr. Gary Johnson of the Rural Health Care Initiative (RHCI), a collaborative effort of Sierra Leoneans and Minnesotans to address maternal and child health needs in Sierra Leone.

Keynote address

Dr. Johnson, an internal and occupational medicine specialist with Health Partners in Minnesota, pulled no punches as he outlined the grim statistics on maternal and child health in Sierra Leone, with particular emphasis on the Tikonko chiefdom in Bo district. He explained how he came to be involved with RHCI through his wife of 31 years Jeanne Ayers, a key figure in health care in Minnesota. He gave figures on infant and maternal deaths in Tikonko chiefdom and noted that the tragedy of the situation was that most of these deaths could be easily prevented with just basic timely intervention.

Gary, as Dr. Johnson prefers to be called, detailed the trip he made over the new year to Sierra Leone with two board members of RHCI, Alice Karpeh and Catherine Osborne, to lay the foundation for RHCI and get a better look at the health infrastructure in the country and intended area of operation. He noted how warmly the people had received the delegation, the existing and future challenges and opportunities that RHCI was confronted with, and his hopes for a future in which RHCI will work with with other partners to reverse the appalling health care statistics in the area.

Attentive audience

Dr. Johnson's keynote address was both sobering and encouraging as he had the full attention of the mixed audience of many in the West African community and Americans from all works of life.

Brooklyn Park Police being friendly

The Brooklyn Park police was also at hand to talk about some outreach programs they had to the mainly immigrant community. The police representative managed to put a human face to an organization that is both desired and feared by members of the immigrant community who sometimes feel targeted by the police.

RHCI Executive Director
Catherine Osborne

The night ended as usual with dancing and merrying. The food was tasty and great. Thanks SLCM.

RHCI Executive Director having fun

The Segbwema blogger is one of the founding members of RHCI

Bad Sierra Leoneans Bring Rebel Mentality to USA

Peaceful Sierra Leoneans around the Washington DC Metro who just want to live their lives, raise their children and provide for their relatives back home in their native Sierra Leone,  are now having to contend with an increased influx of young Sierra Leone migrants into the USA that have brought with them the lawlessness and murderous behavior they acquired in their country during the long civil war in their home country.

Sierra Leone it can be recalled, went through ten years of a vicious campaign by Foday Sankoh, an ex army corporal to take over the country by force of arms, citing the massive corruption and nepotism of the previous All Peoples Congress Party as an excuse. Back by ex-rebel leader turned Liberian president Charles Ghankay Taylor, Foday Saybana Sankoh unleashed a horrendous strategy of intimidation on the local population by engaging in burning of towns and villages, indiscriminate ambushing of roads and food supplies, amputation of limbs or decapitation of captured civilians, rape, looting, and every sort of mayhem designed to instill fear, sow confusion and general pandemonium with the sole purpose of making the population physically and emotionally subservient to Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front.

Foday Saybana Sankoh
RUF Leader and mass murderer

When the world woke up to the genocide that was going on in Sierra Leone, the international community, led by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the UN decided that it was no longer possible to standby in silence in the face of such depravity and human suffering. ECOWAS and subsequently the UN, sent peacekeeping and peace enforcement forces into the country that were finally able to break the back of the rebellion, beat back an attempt by a military rebel coalition dubbed AFRC to derail the democratization process, and capture, try and jail some members leaders of the RUF and a pro-civilian government militia known as the "kamajors", a  name for hunters in the local Mende dialect.

One unfortunate effect of the war was that it gave rise to a new breed of young Sierra Leoneans who grew up in and participated in the lawlessness and violence of the times. Some of these youths have no use for ethical behavior, have very little knowledge of the concept of right or wrong or simply do not care and have very little use or regard for social etiquette. Consequently, Freetown  the capital of Sierra Leone is now plagued by armed robbery, burglary, violent assaults and a high degree of lawlessness. Every single event, be it a political gathering or a dance, has the tendency to quickly degenerate into fussing, fighting, stabbing and violence.

Interior Minister Tarawally
Preparing for Violence

 The current political situation in Sierra Leone, with its high tolerance for corruption and violence has not done much to improve the issue and with the interior Minister, Musa Tarawally, publicly claiming that the government has imported millions of dollars in arms and ammunition to supply the OSD, the armed wing of the police with a bad history, in order to control the opposition during the coming elections, only history will foretell what the future holds for the country this year. Just in the past week a retired superintendent of police,  ASP A. O. Conteh, a  former local unit commander of Goderich , a suburb of Freetown who was resident in USA and had gone to Sierra Leone over some land dispute, was brutally murdered together with his wife,Mammy Yema Conteh and their new housing complex set on fire by unknown assailants, just a day or two before they were due to head back to the United States of America.

A.O. Conteh's Senseless Murder

Somehow, through resettlement, family reunions or otherwise, some of the more unsavory and lawless elements that used to populate the streets of Freetown have slowly and steadily started to find their way into the USA and seemed to be living mostly in the East Coast area, specifically the Washington DC-Maryland-Virginia Axis and the Philadelphia, New Jersey area.

In the previous year three Sierra Leone immigrants were detained and charged for the murder of a promising youth, 23 year old Oluseun Fashina in the city of Glendale, Maryland. The three Sierra Leoneans arrested were all just beginning life and their families had great plans for them. They were 25 year old Tanseh John Nicholas, Alusine Kanu, 22 and Ransford Calker, 25.

A recent shocking case was the murder of 34 year old Aiah Nyanga Tongu of Greenbelt, Maryland on March 18th 2012.  Aiah, an avid soccer fan was a goalkeeper for a local team. He was also into music production and described by his friends as a very calm individual who hated violence and always tried to keep away from trouble. Two Sierra Leoneans, 26 year old Teddy Kaikai Marchant and Alhaji Abu Bakarr, 34, are being held in connection with the death of the promising young man. The Prince George's County police reports that the medical examiner had ruled Aiah's death a homicide, and eyewitnesses had seen the suspects in a violent altercation with the victim.  The medical examiner’s office told Prince Georges County police that Tongu’s death has been ruled a homicide.  The two suspects, Teddy Kaikai Marchant and  Alhaji Abu Bakarr of Bladensburg and Bowie respectively,  have been charged with first-degree assault and are being held without bond. With the medical examiner's ruling, detectives are working with prosecutors to amend the charges to murder, police said.

Alhaji Abu Bakarr

Teddy Kaikai Marchant

Concerned Sierra Leoneans living around the DC Metro area say they have had enough of this random violence and are calling a town-hall meeting tomorrow Saturday April 14, 2012 in Hyattsville, Maryland, to address the issue which is giving all of them a bad name and creating uneasiness between Sierra Leoneans and other African Migrants in the large African community living in the Washington DC Metro area. The meeting is between 2-6:00pm eastern time and they are calling all concerned Sierra Leoneans to attend.

I just hope and fervently pray that the town hall does not become another meaningless APC-SLPP showboating, instead of an emphasis on an existential threat that this social challenge has become.

Sheku Sheriff
Segbwema Blogger