THAT APC APOLOGY TO SLAJ
City Peep was furious over a letter purportedly written on behalf of the All People’s Congress (APC) by one Wotay Dura, the western region Secretary for the APC, expressing their apologies for the crude behavior of some of their members.
They beat up journalists Samura of New Age Newspaper and others during the March 31st runoff polls in the full view of the Sierra Leone Police. When will the APC stop to downplay very critical issues like this in the 21st century? The shabbily written apology, published in the Awoko Newspaper by no less a person than a regional Secretary alongside another apology by Sanuski Broski, is an insult to our colleagues who suffered the brunt of violence perpetrated by hooligans who were desperate to wield power at all cost.
This further shows that the hierarchy of the APC party is not bothered by what happened to our colleagues who were performing their lawful duties like in any other civilized society.
SLPP MEDIA TEAM SHOULD WAKE UP FROM THEIR EUPHORIA
The media team in the new administration should wake up and face the reality. They have come under the spotlight for a number of blunders which have arisen basically out of the uncoordinated approach with which they have been doing their work.
Few days after the President took over the social media was inundated with wrongly misspelled press releases creating huge embarrassment for the Presidency. Few days later we saw Lahai Lawrence Leema, who is part of the party media outfit, putting out a release on behalf of the Vice President on the extension of the Saturday cleaning exercise when we have in place a full fledge Information Minister.
This had happened after a Minister designate had issued Ministerial Executive Order No. 1 when the sitting Vice President was in town. To make matters worse, instead of avoiding the media where the harm has already been done the Information Minster, who saw that his responsibilities have been encroached upon, decided to surface in the media in a last minute attempt to save the face of the government not knowing that he is making matters worse hence creating communication brouhaha.
As if this is not enough we also witnessed during this week quite separate explanations from both Leema and the Information Minister as against the First Lady on her involvement in the inauguration ceremony. While the First Lady is coming out clearly to state to the public that she co-chaired the event and advancing reasons, both gentlemen (Lahai and Information Minister) were busy denying this in radio programs.
Uncoordinated media releases and the continuous utterances by both Leema (Party PRO) on government issues of which there is an information Minster who is the correct and competent individual to speak on behalf of government is a show of lack of coordination.
There should be urgent steps to decipher party and government positions on issues as they arise even though it is very difficult to draw a thin line between the two. Leema remains a ruling party official and he should try to keep himself very close to party functions until otherwise as it pleases His Excellency.