False Inspector: A Sierra Leone Comedy

Mendes Are Stupid

Coachie, some men will be idiots

Former Sierra Leone Peoples Party Western Area Youth Leader Ibrahim Coachie Mansaray who left SLPP for the All Peoples Congress Party of president Ernest Bai Koroma after accusing SLPP of tribalism for having decide to vote a candidate that was Mende as flagbearer, was being extremely honest last week when he stated in front of a throng of APC supporters and party leadership that the Mende stupid people. Of course we  have read the half hearted attempts by members of the APC party to quickly dissociate themselves from this unfortunately unforgettable statement and pro APC papers like Awareness Times, the proprietor of which has embarked on a personal vendetta against Mende people who she describes cunningly as southeasterners, has already qualified and sanitized  the statement, as the very ignorant man stating that "Mendes within SLPP are stupid in their political thinking."

Balogun Koroma 
Still to account for Independence funds

Leonard Balogun Koroma the APC National campaign coordinator who presided over the massively corrupt Sierra Leone 50th Anniversary independence celebrations, categorically came out decrying the statement and dissociating himself from the APC party stalwart Coachie's insult by saying that " President Koroma and all "northerners"  highly respect the Mendes and and take them as their brothers and sisters" How Balogun Koroma was able to know that all northerners respect Mendes, only he can tell, as he did not provide any empirical data. Balogun Koroma then went on to add salt to the wound by stating that Coachie Mansaray, an adult who had decided to leave a party because someone from another tribe became leader, was to be forgiven for his demeaning statement, as it was not done "intentionally." What can be more more intentional than a fully grown and politically active adult male, standing in front of thousands of people and making such a stupid statement, only Balogun can tell as his intended audience has already been described as stupid people.

Sankoh-Shekito's Half Mende

Alhough I will urge any sane Mende person that cares not to even pay any attention to this statement by an unfortunately myopic political operative, his entire statement is totally emblematic of the entire APC political machinery and I do not make this statement lightly and will back it up with cogent facts.

 Before Kabbs Kanu the APC's US based minister plenipotentiary was promoted to the present position, he ran a very popular online political forum called Cocorioko that has now metamorphosed into the leading APC propaganda mouthpiece. This forum was frequented by APC intellectuals who wrote statements more demeaning  than the light hearted statement of a moronic party enthusiast. Mendes were not only derided as stupid, tribalists and bigots on Cocorioko forum, but in addition to that, all of them were decribed as frog and snake eating cannibals. For this and other efforts,  President Koroma used his good offices to promote Kabs Kanu from an elementrary school teacher into a minister representing the views of Sierra leone in the United Nations and tasked him to rebrand Sierra Leone.

Those who think that Coachie's statement was just an incongruous sentiment expressed by an over enthusiastic party supporter need to just follow the link and read what the current deputy minister of information Shaka Tarawallie says about Mendes on a regular basis in his Torchlight newspaper http://www.thetorchlight.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2107:they-are-all-mendes&catid=39:politics-&Itemid=53 Shekito describes Foday Sankoh and Tejan Kabbah as "half blooded Mendes" and John Benjamin as "half Mende, half German" all the people described above are Sierra leoneans, but APC agents like Shekito would strip off the nationality to get at the tribe.

Sierra Leone is all that Matters

What is more insulting, telling someone that he is stupid or telling them that they are "half-blooded"? Why not just describe all these people as Sierra Leoneans who happen to disagree with Shekito's political philosophy and ideology. Take any pro-APC newspaper and look at the names and caricature of John Benjamin, the SLPP party chairman who was born, bred and educated in Sierra leone and has never in his life, lived or worked any place else but in Sierra Leone. This man, born in the city of Segbwema, must have one of the thickest skins of any man alive as the only description APC tribalists have not launched at him is to call him a crocodile, and we are still waiting for that.

Shekito and his "Half people"

Even at the very top, these are sentiments that are famously expressed. President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah may have his detractors. He however, never went around Sierra Leone arranging Loko, Temne and Mende gatherings, but went around the country talking to the "people" of Sierra Leone, and not once in his presidency was he caught in any "I am Loko I am Temne" moment. President Koroma is one of the few modern day leaders that go around the country, focusing less on national  and more on tribal identity. But when you read the writing of Ministers like Shekito and Kabbs Kanu, the only thing that comes to mind when thinking of president Koroma is the phrase "birds of one feather'  or as we scientists like to describe it, "neornithes of inter-morphological plumage converge in close proximity"

As I keep saying, this whole tribalism dialogue emanating from Sierra Leone is terribly disheartening. Those that do not learn from the mistakes of history are bound to repeat them. Tribalism is a vice that must be contained in Sierra Leone. When we were growing up, we had all our problems, but tribalism was not one of them. When I was at Fourah Bay College, my room mate for all the years was Lawyer Abdulai Masiyanday Bangura, who will always be nothing but a brother to me. Shekito will call this man an Eastern Temne. When I left Sierra Leone, one of my best friends was Moses Sesay, now Mayor of Makeni. Moses is a model human being and  I do not think i will ever find a better friend than him and I wish him all the luck in his position. Tribalism is a social malaise that limits your interaction with people who may be instrumental in making your life better. Tribalism is what led to the disastrous genocides in Rwanda, and Sierra Leoneans should take a step back from this precipice, pause, and reflect on forming a country that will be truly national both in politics and in character.

Sometimes I think that the haphazardly drawn boundaries of African countries are amongst the greatest crimes of colonialism. The national boundaries in many countries were drawn without any regard to the cultural differences of the people living in these countries. Nigerians fought the Biafran war and still have conflict today because millions of people who had no cultural affinity or cross cultural understanding were forced to exist together as one nation and it has been social chaos ever since. Even in Sierra leone, the people of Kailahun district have more cultural interrelationship with the people of Lofa County in Liberia than they do with the people of Koinadugu and that may be politically unwise to say, but it is just a fact and I am not a politician.

Biafran General Ojukwu

In spite of these cultural differences, Sierra Leoneans are a product of their history and as we are bound to stay together, people should start to understand each other more. Instead of discouraging inter tribal marriage, we should promote it. Instead of referring to each other as Mendes or Temnes, we should learn to refer to each other as Sierra Leoneans. Every Mende should have a close Temne friend. APC and SLPP should have programs of inter tribal outreach and any future leader of that country should ensure that they appoint a cabinet that is truly reflective of Sierra Leone. Anybody can say what they want about Valentine Esegrabo Melvin Strasser, but he will always go down in history as the president that gave Sierra leone the best cabinet ever in terms of tribal composition.

We should not give any more thought to Coachie, as idiots come in many sizes. we should however change our national dialogue and this has to come from the top of the APC and SLPP leadership. Instead of president Koroma saying I am a Loko why can he not say I am a Sieera leonean.? Instead of SLPP saying "one Temne, One Mende, " why not say "one Sierra leonean"

Segbwema blogger

Julius Maada Bio a Warlord

The High Priest of The Church of Koroma

The height of irresponsible journalism was yesterday reached for me when I read the All People's Congress online ragsheet Cocorioko's report about the Sierra Leone People Congress presidential candidate who is currently on a tour of Canada, being refused entry visa into the United States. Everybody knows that Cocorioko has a pecuniary interest in promoting the interest of President Ernest Bai Koroma. The proprietor of the propaganda mouthpiece was rescitated from the position of a refugee classroom teacher and aspiring reverend into a minister plenipotentiary, whatever that means, and is paid thousands of dollars every month out of the sweat of poor Sierra Leone taxpayers, after having for years discarded his citizenship and lived in USA as Liberian refugee, the area of Liberia that Lokos originated from, only God knows. He therefore feels obliged, as he is bound to, to sing the name of president Koroma to the four corners of heaven. But the article in which it is claimed Maada Bio fooled his supporters is not only reprehensible, it is totally and utterly irresponsible.

APCs Migraine Julius Maada Bio

The first problem with the appalling piece was the reference to Rtd. Brigadier Julius Maada Bio, the SLPP presidential flagbearer as a warlord. This reference may sound appealing to some very lame APC supporters who think that anything you say against an opposition Sierra Leone candidate is right, as the greatest crime crime in the world is challenging the incumbency of their messiah president Ernest Bai Koroma, even though they are fully aware or should be, that the only way a multiparty democracy can survive is by other parties challenging the leadership of the country on a constitutionally mandated periodical basis. Maada Bio is a demon today only because he decided to keep multiparty democracy alive by challenging the incumbency of the messianic Koroma. The term warlord as is popularly used today conjures the image of the head of a militia or some ragtag rebel outfit that was either supporting or opposing the governmental authority in a country, and Maada Bio was never any of these. Like it or not Julius Maada Bio is amongst the group of young men in any country who decide to put service to their country before their own personal ambitions by enlisting straight into the military from high school and forgoing early college enrollment. A lot of young men and women with very good secondary school results see the military as a path to service and intellectual development. 

In many advanced and some developing countries there are military colleges where cadets graduate with both military and academic credentials, the most famous of which are West Point in the USA and Sandhurst in the United Kingdom. Some of us are praying for the day when Benguema in Sierra Leone, the premier military officer training school in the country will be transformed into a full scale military academy teaching technical skills, science and arts and having men and women pass out as officers at the same time with academic degrees which they may use anytime they wish to go back to civilian life. Men like Julius Bio who went to Benguema in those days, brilliant though they were, had to sacrifice academic credentials at the time for military credentials. After leaving Benguema as an officer, the war started and young officers like Julius Bio, Karifa Kargbo, Valentine  Strasser, Tom Nyuma, Prince Ben-Hirsch, Johnny Kallon, the Marahs, Keitas, Kamaras, Tarawallies and hundreds of other young men were thrown in the midst of a rebel war brought on by years of APC misrule, greed, nepotism and sheer incompetence.

Benguema Sierra Leone

These young men gave their all for their country and hundreds gave their lives, the ultimate sacrifice. Even today there are thousands of officers and men in Freetown with horrible physical and emotional scars from a war fought on behalf of the agents of greed. The Maada Bio I know, who was a few years ahead of me in Bo School, was always a career government  soldier. He was never a rebel and never joined any militia. He not only participated in freeing Sierra Leone from the disastrous one party rule of Joseph Saidu Momoh's kleptocracy, but was ultimately intrumental in ensuring that there was no military intransigence in handing power back to a democratically elected civilian government in 1996. So for some nonentity with no military pedigree or history of service to his country, whose position was only obtained on the basis of sycophancy to label Maada Bio a warlord, represents such a pinnacle of irresponsible journalism, that even the loquacious fire-starter Blyden, will find difficulty in equalling.

Cocorioko doing what they know best

We all agree that gratitude is a virtue, but gratitude should be tempered with some element of responsible sanity. We know that the destinies of some of these guys are pegged to the the happiness and sadness of Ernest Koroma, but nobody should feel compelled to be put in a situation where you just have to go about singing praises unless you are a "jayliba" or griot, and unless I am mistaken those guys from Cocorioko do not come from families of griots, unless they have become situational griots! Of course I read Cocorioko because I want to know whether my president is happy, sad or angry on a daily basis and what his wife was doing last week and the Coco guys give me that picture from an embellished view point on a daily basis, but who am I to complain. But this Koroma Personality complex should not transform into demolishing each and every Sierra Leonean that disagrees with him or wants to challenge his leadership style, as no more will Sierra Leoneans allow any one person or party to determine the absolute fate of our country in perpetuity.

Cocorioko is like a friendly neighbor with Alzheimer's dementia who says one thing today and says the exact opposite the next day. Last year they said Alhaji Usu Boie Kamara was a diamond thief,  but now he is feted as a national repentant hero. Nyuma was an irresponsible tyrant, today he is the only intelligent man from Kailahun district. John Leigh used to be an unreasonable old goat, today he is the wise man of Sierra Leone politics. These guys can keep fluctuating like a candle in the wind, but to call a career military officer like Bio a warlord is an insult not only to Bio, but to the thousands of men and women in the Sierra Leone military that went through the same military process he went through. On Bio's promotion to brigadier, any student of military history knows about the rationale for wartime promotions and I will leave others to do the research. I can only say that Dwight Eisenhower was promoted from a Lietenant Colonel in 1936 to a 5 Star General by 1945 and that this is such a common practice in wartime that those who do not know about it need to do some serious reading.

 

And those clamoring and making representations for Maada Bio to be prevented from entering  USA are doing nothing new, they did the same thing to John Benjamin, Komba Mondeh and other ex-NPRC leaders. In America, allegations are investigated when they are made and if that is what has been done he will ultimately be allowed to enter, as Idriss Kamara and others are here peacefully and are not being harassed because they did not decide to challenge President Koroma. The thing is that a lot of the NPRC now APCs will also be subject to whatever allegation is made against Bio. It is a classic case of cutting your nose to spite your face. As I keep saying, if APC is really serious about rescitating the case of Bambay, Valentine Strasser who was president at the time is right there in Freetown.

Samuel Kanyon Doe once Mr. Kanu's president

Some of these fellows want us to believe Maada Bio is not s true Sierra Leone patriot. One man has served his country at peace and at war and is a citizen of only one country Sierra Leone. The other man has never done any honest work for Sierra Leone and is a citizen of three countries, Sierra Leone, USA and Liberia. My people, who is the rel patriot?

The Happy king

There was once this king who ruled along the shores of the peninsular mountain ridges of Rokamp, long before Pedro Da Cintra came along those areas with his vessel full of sick Portuguese sailors and called the the area "Serra Lyoa" meaning lion mountains. It was even before a chief called Nepo in the areas between the rivers Moa and Maleh in an eastern land far away from Rokamp, named his son Sei in the town of Gbandilo and many people come from far and near to see the chief's son Sei, ultimately giving the town the name Sei-gbay-ma, which the British spelt in their nasal tone as Segbwema. Seigbayma meaning the place where the people went to see Sei.

The Great King

The great and magnificent king of Rokamp, with forty wives, 77 concubines and 145 biological children had no equal from the shores of the Atlantic to the innermost tributary of the great river Scarcies. The king was feted and feasted. He was a wise king and a good ruler. He surrounded himself by only people who agreed with him. People who disagreed with him or were different from him were not important, were not significant, did not matter. People who disagreed with him did not see that he was trying to build a kingdom so great that it would one day be the envy of even the gods. He had no patience for these type of people, they were not wise, they were not ambitious and they vexed him. The happy and great almighty king had no patience for small minded people who vexed him. He had time only for the wise and great men who thought like him, who saw the world from his own view point.

The king was happy with the way things were, but he had only one very secret sadness that sometimes troubled him greatly. Somedays the weight of this great sadness bore down so much on his chest that he found it difficult to breathe. For years the king moved amongst the people, always  pretending to be happy, but a wise old man saw the troubled look that sometimes passed across the king's majestic face, even in the midst of festivities and thought that there must be something troubling this great and mighty chief. 

The Wise Agreeable Man

One day the wise old man came upon the chief sitting alone in the garden of his youngest and newest wife with the same sad look on his face. The old man, knowing that the chief was a kind and benevolent spirit who only cut of people's" head when they did something terribly wrong, decided to muster the courage and ask the king once and for all what the matter was that sometimes troubled him so deeply. At first the chief denied and stated that he was very happy. He had many wives and children and the people loved him and said he did not understand why the old man thought he should at anytime be unhappy. He assured the old man that he was happy from the moment the sun rose to the moment it set beyond the walls of his magnificent palace. The old man did not however relent, but kept prodding the chief, to know the source of his great secret unhappiness.

At last the great king of the land of Rokamp on the shores of the peninsular mountains conceded the truth and told the old man the source of his great secret unhappiness, on the pain of death, if he were to ever mention it to someone else.

"Old man," The king said, "I am secretly unhappy because in spite of all that I am and all that I have done, there are still people in this kingdom who disagree with me."

"Great King do not let this trouble you anymore more. I will take you to the secret cave of the great God  who satisfies every wish. Just ask him what you want and he will give it to you. No man knows about this cave and swear not to reveal it to anybody," the old man said. The king promised never to tell a single soul and allowed himself to be led to the cave by the wise old man who always agreed with him, blindfolded.

At the cave the king said. "Great God you have made me very happy and I want only one more thing to complete my happiness. I want everybody in this kingdom to always agree with me."

A deep voice from the cave said to the great and almighty chief, "Go safely home wise king, tomorrow when the first fowl crows cocorioko, your wish shall come to pass."

The old man blindfolded the king once again and led him out of the secret cave. They went home, and the king was exceedingly happy.

On the morning of the next day, the king rushed out upon hearing the first Cocorioko and lo and behold everyone in the kingdom had become a sheep and they all agreed with him all the days of his life and all they ever replied to anything that he said was, "baa baaa baa, and beh beh beh.

The Agreeable Subjects

Intelligence at an Unintelligent Time

Another Officer Who thought he was Intelligent.

I read with some amusement Al-Aziz Turay's highly theoretical and deeply unrealistic piece in APC's news outlet Cocorioko about law enforcement and policing.  Aziz goes on to give a textbook description of what a police officer out to be and the circumstances, real or perceived that these brave men and women face on a daily basis. As a purely theoretical construct, who can argue with Al-Aziz Turay? We have all at one time or the other seen evidence of excellent policing, very few cases in Sierra Leone, but definitely seen more of it elsewhere. Where men and women are sworn to protect others, they surely ought to be praised, if they are doing what they are supposed to do and there are definitely some Sierra Leone police officers that are real ethical heroes. 

Ex Intelligence Officer Al-Aziz

However, let us not get too carried away by this developed country or textbook model of policing. The reality of policing in the areas of the world where we come from, Aziz and I, are quite different. Unless as an intelligence officer Aziz was walking around Freetown with his intelligence and eyes in his back pocket, then he must have been one of the most unintelligent intelligence officers that ever had the opportunity to wear a uniform, or he simply did not give a damn as he was just one of the corrupt bunch that made our country into a smuggler's paradise.

The funny thing about some people is that a problem only becomes real when it knocks at their own door. We all know that the only reason why Aziz us now touting the credentials of the APC police force is because as opposed to the period of Ahmed Tejan Kabba who put mechanisms in place to ensure that police officers really started paying attention to their prescribed duties, the recent spate of police killings, which some have described as "honest mistakes" has exposed the return of the Sierra Police to the vices of the past. Everybody in Sierra Leone knows that in the past police never protected the people, they protected the government. It was in the days of the said Aziz when you had to buy your own pen and paper to write a police report if you went to the police with a criminal or civil complaint, but the police were out in full force if you said anything against the government. The police force that Aziz writes about in their day is nothing worth talking about, let alone brag or write about.

Police Intelligence Sa Lone Style

If the two young men that were "mistakenly" killed were relatives of former intelligence officer Turay, I do not think that he would have been so quick to start preaching about the difficulty of policing, I bet he would have been singing a different tune. Go and tell the parents of those that were killed that they should understand, as policing is a difficult job and therefore police should be trigger happy to protect themselves. Tell them it was just an honest mistake that is now happening on a regular basis, ever since we fecided to forgo the importation of food and decided to bring in arms instead. 

There are countries with formidable criminal gangs or dangerous civil agents. In these countries criminals are organized and well armed. In Sierra Leone the line between those that protect and those that need to be protected against is extremely opaque. Historically police, especially the SSD now OSD were police paramilitaries that were heavily armed and poorly paid. When a very hungry man becomes very heavily armed, the only thing he is going to be concerned with is his next meal, and good policing be damned. 

If this bloke was a real intelligence officer, he must have realized that there was intelligence in keeping your theoretical opinion to yourself at certain times. We have all read ethics textbooks that tell us how to behave. How to do right things and avoid doing wrong. People go to the church on Sunday and mosque on Friday and are told that adultery and crime is evil. Does that stop us? Police academies teach all these courses about good policing and the obligation to serve the public. Just as pastors preach in the morning and become hooligans at night, so do the police tell us about being honest and go right to the checkpoint and start harassing poor drivers for bribes. 

 My friend Aziz,  thanks for telling the world of your intelligence credentials at a very unintelligent time.

The Guns Have Started Blazing

Police Heading for the youths

When at the end of the previous year concerned people started complaining about the massive infusion of arms and ammunition into Sierra Leone by the APC led government of Ernest Bai Koroma in a leaked transaction that was supposed to be a clandestine operation, government agents and functionaries with the help of journalistic stooges, dismissed the reports as mere rabble rousing and had the UN rep to the country chased out of town for raising concern about this particular activity, amongst other social ills.

People wanted to know why a government that had come to power by defeating an incumbent government in a violence free election suddenly wanted to import millions of dollars worth of military arsenal into the country in an election year, to arm a section of the police that has always been notorious for its brutality and its antidemocratic credentials from the days of the late Siaka Probyns Stevens.

Brazen Daylight Police Brutality

The OSD that was in the past called the SSD were state paramilitaries that were used in the past to launch indiscriminate attacks on students in the 70s, a notable victim being the same Hindolo Trye who is now so loudly silent on police brutality because he is in the system. The same police branch was used in the 80s by the notoriously sly Bambay Kamara to harass and intimidate college students leading to the defection of many of the student leaders to the rebel training grounds in Ghaddafi's Libya, where the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)plague was born and many of these disgruntled youths fell into the waiting arms of Foday Saybanah Sankoh who was to become one of the most vicious and sadistic rebel leaders in African history.

State Sponsored terrorism

So for the government that took up power on the promise of hope and change, but quickly had the country's currency in free fall with food prices jumping through the roof and banks running out of cash, while drivers slept in long lines to get a few gallons of gas, to suddenly start importing arms on the eve of an election in which the majority of the people were terribly disgruntled was an ominous sign of dark days ahead.

Ernest Koroma's youth Employment

Well the question that was on sane people's mind as to why a government that was barely able to feed its people would suddenly go on a weapon buying spree at such a crucial time in the country's history, seems to have been answered loud and clear and unfortunately it seems to only be the beginning!
The OSD have over the past few months found a target for their new guns, the civilian population. Over the past few months the APC government's security agents have started doing target practice with live ammunition on innocent civilians whose only crime was to peacefully protest against social problems in the country. From Kambia to Bumbuna to now Freetown the capital, the OSD under the leadership of police inspector general Francis Munu and Interior Minister Musa Tarawallie have embarked on a shoot to kill policy for even the smallest public sign of protest.

Musa Fulfilling his pledge

In the latest incident of unnecessary heavy handed police brutality, two innocent youths were killed Tuesday June5, 2012,  for the simple crime of belonging to a neighborhood group that was trying to fight the spate of uncontrolled armed robbery in their area. The group had chased some armed robbers in their area who had managed to escape in a suspicious looking vehicle. The blogger correspondent reports that minutes after the escape,  the police suddenly materialized on the scene, guns blazing and managed to cut down the innocent young men in their prime. Many other youths were wounded in a case of unnecessary police brutality and disregard for human life. The Blogger correspondent on the scene stated that the police had absolutely no need for the gross  human right violation as the real robbers had long fled the scene.

Major General Koroma?

Most people are starting to question whether there is a direct correlation between the high increase in the spate of armed robbery in Freetown and the presence of such heavy weaponry in the hands of very poorly paid security personnel. The blogger investigative team will continue to monitor the degenerating security situation as it unfolds. People in the country seem to be bracing for worse acts of police brutality as elections come near, as there are powerful forces in Sierra Leone and narco-agents in Colombia who now use Sierra leone as a cocaine transit point that are very much interested in maintaining the status-quo against all odds. We will just continue to report these unfortunate events as they unfold.

Bambay Kamara: A Tyrannical Saint.

Mrs. Ibrahim-Cole, my class five  teacher at Samaria Primary School, Wellington Street Freetown, just behind the Red Lion Bakery used to say that the "the patient dog gets the fattest bone." That was then; when things were better. Sierra Leone then had a population of just over 3 million, the Leone was more valuable than the US dollar and Siaka Stevens was just deciding to host the OAU. Those were the days of economic sanity. Samuel Lansana Bangura was still governor of Sierra Leone, a righteous man, later cut down in his prime by Siaka Steven's malevolent ambition and violently murdered in 1979 in connivance with Bambay Jamara then CID boss and the notorious Highwayman of Samuels, Kissy.

Samuel Lansana Bangura

Of all the sins of All People's Congress party (APC), the murder of Samuel Lansana Bangura, for the simple reason that he objected to the hosting of the OAU which he saw as a monumental waste of the young nations resources, represents one of the darkest chapters in that party's history or even in the history of Sierra Leone and those now clamoring for justice for Bambay need only to realize that God may occasionally close his almighty eyes, but he never sleeps. I will never justify the way Valentine Strasser treated Bambay and others, because I strongly believe that every human being, regardless of the enormity of his crime, deserves his day in a free and fair court. However, sometimes people do reap what they sow. Bambay may have been a great dad and a great family man, a loyal police officer to his political masters, a benevolent person to the numerous students he gave scholarships to, but deep down he was a very bad and malevolent human being who had no second thought in eliminating any and all that he considered as a barrier to his enormous ambitions.

For objecting to hosting the OAU, which Siaka Stevens wanted to do to satisfy his monumental ego, Samuel Lansana Bangura's premises were gotten into by collaborating with a relative of his. He was then dragged and thrown over the rails of his balcony in his upstairs building after been manhandled and fell to his certain death. I was too young at the time to know how the case was tried, but the main perpetrators went scot free, as highway man lived to further terrorize the poor residents of Kissy.

Bambay Kamara Villainous Saint

Under Bambay Kamara, the Sierra Leone police became one of the most corrupt law enforcement institutions on the face of the earth and appointments to key areas of the country in the police force was openly bought and sold. When I was a student at Fourah Bay we had an incident in which a burglar went to block H at night and got into a room. Unfortunately he was caught and students started beating him badly. Some of us who thought he would most likely be killed were able to convince some of our rowdy colleagues to have him be taken instead to the small FBC police station that was located near the Library studies department. When we took the thief there he was locked up in the cell and the opportunity made me befriend the police boss that was there. The police boss, whose name I cannot now remember, was a very bitter man. He had been sent to run the FBC police station, which was one of the most miserable police appointments at the time, because he had had the bad luck of falling out with Bambay Kamara. As a supposed punishment he was sent to monitor Fourah Bay College, a place in which the students at the time had no business with or even cared for the police.

Under Bambay Kamara's police, Sierra Leone became a contraband state in which smuggling became a thriving business. Police along the Pamalap axis with Guinea did not only let smuggling go on brazenly for cash, they were partners in the crime and provided protection and security for smugglers. All police bosses assigned to border areas like Koindu and Pamalap were expected to make monthly visits to Bambay's headquarters with monetary gifts, and it was the size of the gifts that was used in determining whether you stayed in your particular department or were posted to a far away place like Bonthe or assigned to be the commander at FBC, guarding students who were among the most broke and "hard up" students, anywhere in the world.

One of the gravest injustices that Bambay Kamara ever inflicted on a fellow human being was the treatment meted out to the former head of Liberia's senate Mr. Kekura B Kpoto who became a refugee in Sierra Leone during the Liberian Civil war. Senator Kpoto was a prominent Liberian politician and one of the foremost West African farmers and businessmen at the time of the war in Liberia. He historically had strong ties to Sierra Leone and all his male sons Ziama, Bayoh and William, got their education in Sierra Leone at the presitigious Bo School in Bo town, the nation's second capital. During Taylor's NPFL invasion of Liberia, prominent politicians like Kpoto were targets for immediate execution. Kpoto managed to escape from Liberia and sought solace and political refuge in Sierra Leone. Ever the businessman, Kekura Kpoto saw a chance to invest in SierracLeone's massive cocoa and coffee trade as APC had run SLPMB into the ground.

Kpoto was licensed to operate in the country as produce dealer, but he made the unfortunate mistake of starting to pay the farmers far more than James International was paying at the time for a pound of cocoa or coffee. 

After the demise of SLPMB, local business magnate Eric James of James International saw the opportunity to operate in the business like a monopoly by supplying prominent local farmers strong small trucks on loan and thus getting their loyalty. At the time he had no strong private competitor and he was sure of easily recouping his investment in these trucks that were widely distributed in the eastern region, Sierra Leone's bread basket, and some areas of the south. Kpoto's presence in the form of his company VOLCAFE seriously complicated things for James International as farmers were rushing to Volcafe with their higher prices motivated simply by the law of supply.

Kpoto's boss K. Doe

Eric James saw a great threat to his business model and sought the help of Bambay Kamara to control Kekura Kpoto. Bambay staged managed the arrest of Kpoto and trumped up charges of him engaging in arms trafficking for rebels. He was locked up and he lost most of his investments in the country. Later Kpoto returned to Liberia after the war and Samuel Doe's death to once again enter into Liberian politics. Kekura Kpoto may have been one of the most cunning political chameleons of contemporary Liberian politics, but he was never a supporter of Taylor during the war.

Eric James -James International

All this hoopla and cry about justice for Bambay Kamra is a patently false and hypocritical stance by politicians and pseudo-journalists who have very little interest in the man, but are just capitalizing on using the families of those killed in the infamous SAJ Musa massacre as pawns in a wider political chess game. APC has been in power since 2007, is it just now that they realized that Bambay was killed almost twenty years ago? If the truth of the action is what is being sought, why not go after Valentine Strasser who is living in plain site in Freetown? He was the president for Pete's sake! 

Bambay Kamara is unfortunately part of the cabal that brought the country Sierra Leone to its knees and reduced the country in their time to the poorest country on the face of the earth. His massive corruption, especially during the period of the buffoonish Momoh was one of the catalytic factors that precipitated the decade long RUF violence in the country that led to the massacre of thousands of Sierra Leoneans. Though I will never endorse the way he was killed, it will be better for everybody in Sierra Leone if he just remains dead. Dead as a doornail, dead as an ancient Egyptian mummy, as dead as dead. We all lost close people and relatives in Sierra Leone. Jim Fornah, Francis Minah, Brigadier Bangura, Kula Samba, Johnny Moore, and even Sam Maskita Bockarie all had relative. If all the relatives of those that have unjustly died in Sierra Leone are to open inquests into their deaths, we will have to spend the next twenty years blaming each other. Let us bury these crimes of the past and use them to vow never to go down that road again.