On Tuesday morning June 23rd 2015, I listened to Radio Democracy 98.1 breakfast show programme “Good Morning Salone” and one of the items featured in the programme concerned an audio recording of the Minister of Sports, Paul Kamara and the Technical Director of the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) or Coach, Jebor Sherrington.  

The audio recording which was released on June 20th 2015 is now circulating on the social media  has been rebuked by the Awareness Times publication dated June 23rd 2015 as it contained “unprintable invectives (including mammy cuss)” between the Sports Minister and the Football Coach.

The impression I gathered from the programme while being aired was that the incident happened very recently and some listeners in their text messages to the radio station were calling for both the Sports Minister and the Football Coach to either resign from their respective posts or President Ernest Bai Koroma to sack his appointed Sports Minister.

It was not until I read in the Exclusive Newspaper published Tuesday June 23rd, 2015, the following;- “What has been an utmost surprise is the fact that the recording has only been released for an incident that occurred way last October. Meanwhile, sports purists predict what they call a witch-hunt going on between the minister and the coach.”

The first question that came to mind was: Why now and is it because a cabinet reshuffle in the offing?  

Upon further investigation I found out that the release of the recording on social media has something to do with the last abortive SLFA delegates’ congress in Makeni.

The Awareness Times publication dated Tuesday June 23, 2015 stated in its front page lead story on the recording, “since the 2013 elections for President of the Sierra Leone Football Association, local football has not been pleasant to report on,” – These are facts; especially to the international media.

If the objective  of releasing the recording now is to put pressure on  President Ernest Bai Koroma to sack his appointed Sports Minister, let me share one of the lessons I learnt while serving as the first Press Officer to late President Siaka Stevens following Sierra Leone becoming a Republic in 1971. The late man once told me, “young man, one of the WORST HALAKI that can happen to a politician, is MISTIMING,” [caps mine for emphasis.]