A Joint Rejoinder by Concerned Citizens
Freedom of the press and of expression is a very healthy democratic weapon of value. It catches the imagination of a pressman as being a hero and very powerful in the society with the pen in his hand. That Fourth Estate mentality. Where the problem lies however, is when such freedom intoxicates some journalists as to overstep the bounds.
This brings to mind the August 14, 2019 edition of the Nightwatch newspaper with the Page 2 headline: WANTED: REALITY NEW DIRECTION. The writer of the piece honed into a number of issues pretentiously claiming to be a constructive criticism of the government of His Excellency Retired Brigadier President Julius Maada Bio.
The writer with innate bitterness and drive to rub the President Bio’s development drives into the very gutters, he claimed that the President has reneged on most of the provisions of his Manifesto as to be “reprehensible to say the least.”
Such reprehensible things according to the writer are that the government does not care about hard work. “The law about checking in and out of offices seems to be outdated; the President’s unannounced visits to offices is no more; while the APC government stopped Sunday trading, the Paopa government came and allowed the business to go on up to mid-day every Sunday, which order has been ignored by traders who now sell all day long on Sundays.”
The writer went on: “After a year of having their fill on per diems and their appetites sicken comes a belated travelling temporary travelling ban. That could have been a period of grace that is likely to resume when they could have exhausted their ill-gotten gains. In order that there will be no vacuum in the wastage of rampant travelling, the boss (President Bio), has remained in the travelogue as kingpin traveler.”
Then came the writer’s bang: “Magufuli of Tanzania has deliberately restricted his travels to the east African regions and George Weah of Liberia has not been heard of traveling at random. Thus far President Bio is the World’s best travelled Leader. It should come as no surprise if one day his plane collides with a flying saucer.”
“To the pure in heart all things are pure, but to those who are corrupt in their thinking and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact their minds and consciences are corrupted.” So is it with the author of that piece. We need not belabor patriotic Sierra Leoneans and people of goodwill about how well His Excellency President Bio means for Sierra Leone. No sooner than later the author and his paymasters will come to grips with the realities of President Bio’s efforts to deliver this country from the very gutters where he took it.
It remains however to let the author of that article know that for him to have such an ill will for our President’s plane to one day collide with a flying saucer, he has rolled a huge boulder to the peak of a mountain and it will roll out of control to find him in a quandary.
It is an unassailable logic that if a man wishes you harm and you harmed him first, it is no sin. The writer has wished our President harm in his characteristic unpatriotic article claiming to be constructive criticism. Let him rest assured that there are millions of people in this country that are prepared to die for President Bio and they are going to punish him a punishment that measures up to his hatred and curse on our President if not more. Our President by the grace of God will not buy the farm from any flying saucer as long as he does not go on pleasure trips abroad but instead, he travels in the cause of his country’s betterment. The author otherwise is going to buy the farm even before he realizes that he is not fit to live.
Do you know Mr. author that, by your curse on our President’s life you have bought yourself a one-way ticket to obscurity and you may as well kiss your future journalism good-bye? Your reference to our President’s plane colliding with a saucer (God forbid it a million times), your arrogance, courage, utter audacity, effrontery and impudence are going to gall your guts. Believe it or not. What an errant show of reckless journalism is that!
A mind suppressed by the sense of sin can play many nasty tricks. While in the author’s heart of hearts he knows that he is serving his paymasters, he claims that he is engaged in constructive criticism. Is wishing a whole head of state such curse any constructive criticism? His article like many others before this is familiar with bad journalists who can lie and slander if only to get money from their paymasters.
Certainly the writer is an APC party stooge masquerading as an objective and trained journalist. It is only APC party merchants – that band of liars, brutes, locusts, gluttons and tricksters – that could go to that length in politics. If he thinks he is capable of sacrificing the Bio’s government on the altar of his paymasters, we promise he and his media will become a thing of the past.
It has taken us nearly one month to react to your ill fated wish for our President’s life in order to allow you to fully wallow in your self-assumed personal satisfaction and foolish pride that you can get away with every rubbish that you can publish. Not this one; you will pay the price soonest or later, constructive criticism or not.