SAHR JOHN AND SLPP ZEALOTS , THE PROBLEM IN SIERRA LEONE IS NOT ABOUT ME; IT IS ABOUT MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE ABOUT TO ENTER THE MOST DIFFICULT TIME OF THEIR LIVES

Only a MORON will say I was a mouthpiece for 50 years as Sahr John just did.

OF COURSE, there is no journalist dead or alive in Sierra Leone who has not been a mouthpiece for one party or the other at one time or the other. Even the doyen, Sam Metzger, was the APC mouthpiece with WE YONE from the mid-70s until he retired in the mid-1990s. Before that , he was SLPP mouthpiece with UNITY . Name any journalist in Sierra Leone who is not aligned to the SLPP or APC.

I have been a journalist for over 50 years.

Everybody who knows me knows that I started journalism in the classroom in the early 60s when I published the handwritten RESERVATION STAR and later FREEDOM NATIONAL, which were big hits with my teachers and fellow students.

I was Editor of the CKC TIMES for one year in high school in the mid 60s while also serving as a correspondent in Bo for the SIERRA LEONE DAILY MAIL. ; And at FBC in the early to mid 70s I was one of the most active journalists on CHUKS PRESS . I set up COCORIOKO and then edited SPOTLIGHT with the late Reginald Pobee and after graduation I worked with the Late Pios Foray on THE TABLET and then with the late Sam Metzger as WE YONE SPORTS REPORTER from Liberia in the late 70s to mid-80s. Then in the 90s I worked for THE WEST AFRICAN JOURNAL, EXPO TIMES and the Sierra Leonean Newsletter before reviving COCORIOKO early in the 2000s.

Yes, I was a mouthpiece of the APC between 2007 and now but in all the other years, we published on diverse matters. I have attacked five different governments—the Shaki, NPRC, AFRC , Kabbah and Bio governments . Was I a mouthpiece then ? And to show you that Sahr John is a man of shifting opinions, he has said on my page many times that he used to admire me at FBC for my journalistic skills . I guess it was because at that time we all fought the Shaki rule, which he despised. Sahr John only admires people who attack the APC.

I know he is one of those who have hypocritically shifted opinions lately . When the APC was in power, tribalism was a very bad thing to him , but today, he is one of those praising tribalism. He is seeing evil and calling it good now because his SLPP is in power.

My page is for serious political discourse and arguments, not for attacking me. What is happening in Sierra Leone is not about me. It is about millions of people whose destiny is in jeopardy under this junta government. We have to speak out against what is happening because if we remain silent, our people will perish .

When we were in power, SLPP and NGC loyalists spoke out. That was democracy at work. Today, we are not in power. Naturally , we are now in the opposition and we too will speak out. That is democracy at work.

So, the problems of Sierra Leone are bigger than any person