Too many screwed faces around and indeed create wary walking for the righteous in God’s Kingdom. Those in Babylon always have enough room at the top because they are always poised to push the righteous down. Is this not why Sierra Leone keeps hitting rock-bottom? The good thing though there is always the assumption that when you hit rock bottom, you are sure to bounce back.
The protest tradition in Sierra Leone has been very chequered. In the 70s the greatest protest group was students. In the late 70s the protest stage was taken over by the Labour Congress. Labour Congress is one entity that dived so sharply to a surprisingly astonishing oblivion. Too bad. The guys there gave the late President Stevens a hell of a time. The word democracy had not entered into Sierra Leone’s socio- political diction. Do you remember Pa Kabia that once headed that outfit? In those days the guys were lion hearted. They woefully lost the stage to the teachers. I mean the days of Emmanuel Fatorma from Bo. He gave the government at the time too much run for its money. He first fought the SLTU and then challenged Government on better conditions of service. Pa Shaki cleverly later got him into Parliament. The rest is an unending story of one success to another and he continued to support teachers back home. Since then the executive of the SLTU year in year out has had nightmares of one concerned group or another suffocating the Executive out of power. Take Alpha Timbo who served the Tejan Kabbah administration as one of the most successful Ministers…in the true Bo School tradition. Another Group was the Theater in the 70s and 80s. Theater at the time was starkly satirizing the political dictatorship that defied every definition. We are talking here of Groups like Kolosa John Kargbo’s plays Poyotogn Wahala and Let me Die Alone; Dele Charlie’s Quadriangle with Tabule Tiata. Freddy Bobor James’ Congoma Theater, Charlie Haffner who gave the theater a community comedy and satire flavor, with Freetogn players. They actually have survived with the now highly popular radio soap opera—Atunda Ayenda.
Well sorry if you are wondering where all this is leading you. The greatest Player that has always dominated the Protest Tradition stage in Sierra Leone is the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists.
This is a profession that is having an unfair share of harassment and some times even maiming. What is unique about the profession is that although most times it is wont to take a civil society posture, it is also part of the market sector as it is also business. Some years ago newspaper proprietors were not their own editors. Today some editors have graduated into actually owning their own outfits. This has given a new power twist to the whole issue. By extention this has dictated a new power dynamics. Now there are editors and there are Managing editors and even Proprietors.
One big challenge is how to create very viable collaborative linkages between them. At the moment there seems to be divisions or small camps. This situation some times blurs objectivity and fair play. Journalists as social strangers should as a necessity present a common front when it comes to addressing issues hinging on the credibility of the profession. The SLAJ leadership has tried very hard to weather many storms. I must say President Umaru Fofana has been very uncompromising in handling critical issues that seem to pose threats to the cohesion of the Association. He has driven ample vibrancy into the profession as evidenced by his acceptability by various sectors of our society as being objective.
In Sierra Leone people normally blame the ineptitude of governments on the people around the president and not the president. I do not subscribe to this. Who selects who should it be around the President? It is the president himself.
I have been watching closely the performance of SLAJ and I think the Executive is moving along with their president Umaru Fofanna because he knows what he is doing and indeed is up to the task. He has been ‘Kissingering’ for several months; trouble shooting and crisis managing. Even as I do this piece his challenges keep widening. Concord Times of Monday June 8, 2009 carried a story of a Kenema Journalist who has been dragged to the magistrate court in Kenema for alledgedly publishing false information about the Harris Construction Company.
Well it is becoming a rule now for Journalists to be dragged to court than an exception. You see this country’s citizens some times take journalist for granted. This is why it is good to learn that now many Journalists own their own businesses and not manipulated by some tycoon flying on the whims of some political juggernauts. Practicing journalism in Sierra Leone is as tricky as trying to prevent bats on the Freetown Cotton Tree from shitting around our historic roundabout. You may have to cut down the Cotton Tree first perhaps! Of course you don’t dare do that, so let the birds do their thing … if you get the stuff dropping on your white shirt then take it as good luck. One Hope though since Africell is beautifying the tree they may as well take care of the shitting bats…or are they Sparrows from Sweden?
You may not want to recognize the role of journalists but you definitely cannot take away the indelible imprint they make on the overall development of the state. We have people who are rich and think their main preoccupation is to kowtow the press and they can drag you to court at the slightest excuse.
What I do not understand is why people do not go to the IMC on matters relating to the Press. I will not be surprised one day if journalists are dragged to the Bondo or the Poro bush in this twenty first century! I was listening to BBC this morning and they read out wise words which went like this: A person’s character is like pregnancy…it never hides for long”
In a country where the legal and the moral are most times at variance if not mutually exclusive. you could get a jail sentence even when you are in the right. For the journalist the road indeed is long, the climb stiff…but they always try to get there. The journalist does not count the days like a demotivated civil servant but actually make the days count.
The Media tries to stay current…currency enhances its relevance. I really think the public should be told what it takes to publish information with all the varied ramifications. Just this morning I was listening to a radio interview with a Dr Amza. He said you can actually contract gonorrhea and so many other diseases from the latrine…the open direct hole. Well check out the statistics of non flush toilets in the city and you will understand the seriousness of our hygiene situation.
The tight rope walking nature of journalism especially with the Seditious Libel Sword of Damocles hanging over us makes the profession so hard to run. What we know is that the journalist merely provides the mirror for society to see its own reflection.
The current landscape in the country provides enough meat for journalists and their press to live on. As long as Sierra Leoneans refuse to go by the dictates of organized and ordered society, journalists will continue like their Civil society counterparts do justice to moral obligations to the nation. However the very people journalists take as their constituency sometimes do not support them…they are most times feared unnecessarily. You know the guilty are afraid. The musicians criticize the society some times more directly but they seem less endangered than journalists.
As SLAJ marks its 38th birthday please give it all the support for Mama Salone’s sake, if not for God’s sake!
CONGRATS SLAJ…This piece is dedicated to Sheku Tanga, the Eastern Radio Journalist facing Seditious Libel Charge in Kenema. We are behind you Bro.
By S. Beny SAM
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