Sierra Leone News: Fire Burn Traders deflate SLP …as President stops Police action All roads yesterday led to State House, as traders at Fire Burn which includes Magazine Cut, Fourah Bay Road, Guard Street and Hagan Street in their hundreds trekked to State House to lodge a complaint against the state security force, the Sierra Leone Police for stopping them from plying their petty trading activities on the said streets. The traders, some dressed in red and some carrying placards with inscriptions such as “give us our rights”; “what do you want us to do now?”, reportedly converged at Fourah Bay Road early yesterday morning and in a militant mood passed through Sani Abacha street and through Garrison Street on to Gloucester Street to State Avenue and finally to the Seat of Power. The petty traders defied all security protocols as they chanted past election campaign songs that are supportive of the President’s re-election. As the rowdy crowd approached State House, some of the protesting petty traders sprang to lay flat on the tarmac in gesticulation of the deprivation they are likely to face should the police order be upheld by the President. “We are going to tell ‘The Pa’ what the police want to do to us,” Adama Kamara, Chairlady of the Fire Burn Traders Union stated, while she explained that when they went to do business yesterday morning, they were stopped by the police who she said may have deployed in the area very early that morning. She said most of the tables and stalls on which they did their businesses had been removed or destroyed by the police. “We don’t have anywhere else to go to do business and we will not leave the area,” the Chairlady affirmed, stating further that they were going to the President to get confirmation of this. Foday Kargbo, a junks shoes trader said the police want “to remove bread from our mouths” noting that it is at Fire Burn that they get money to care for their families, pay their children’s school fees and pay their rents, problems they cannot take directly to government. He said most of the youth at Fire Burn who play diverse petty trades are either school-goers fending for their school fees or are single parents taking care of their children. “We are selling because we do not want to steal or turn to prostitution,” Foday told this reporter. At State House, the traders were told to appoint a five-man representative including the Chairman and Chairlady to have a meeting with the President and the rest were to wait outside. Through to the words of the Chairlady, the President reportedly ordered the police to stop its operation at Fire Burn while he looks into the matter. Many other people this reporter spoke to expressed disappointment at what some say was “the turning of the country’s seat of power into a Kangaroo Court where state policies can be abruptly overturned.” A very senior government official who spoke on the basis of anonymity said in utter despair that State House has been turned into “a mere play ground” for protests and demonstrations over issues that are supposed to be handled and settled by much, much lower state authorities. “There is more to it than the ordinary eyes can see. It shows that the President has nothing else to do but to usurp what are supposed to be responsibilities of junior state officials,” the anonymous government official said, stating emphatically, “The Presidency is a serious office and must not be taken for a joke like it appears to be now.” He went on to recall the “many times” people have ignored other state machineries to urge for a presidential intervention. He cited the case of the Calaba Town youth riot when the President’s convoy was stopped and he intervened in the fracas that had ensued between the youth and a certain Fullah man over the latter’s piece of land and the demonstration of petty traders of Sani Abacha Street against the Operation WID. As the traders’ representatives came out with smiles to disclose to the throng outside that the President has “put a stop to the police action” they could do nothing less other than to step up their singing of praises to “The Pa” for being so considerate. The question asked by many concerned Sierra Leoneans now is: “Why is the President not taking such direct serious action when people express concern about happenings in the education sector and the education Ministry?” “May be something taboo relating to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Minister himself that are constraining the President’s direct action in response of the concerns raised by the people,” a student of IPAM stated. By Edna Smalle Friday October 04, 2013
Posted on: Fri, 04 Oct 2013 21:50:14 +0000
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