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.]
© Copyright by Awareness Times
Newspaper in Freetown, Sierra Leone.