I HAVE REACHED A MILESTONE TODAY ( 70 ).
It has been a long journey .I want to thank God for everything he has done for me . His goodness, mercies and grace have followed me throughout my life.
Our times are in his hands. He created us. He determines or approves many things that happen to us. I am here today not because I am special, or through my wisdom or might. I am here today only through the grace of God.
I therefore want to bow down before him in praise and worship and thank him and pray that he will bless me with countless more birthdays. May His name be glorified forever.
Today, Thursday March 7, 2024 will constitute a significant milestone in my life as I will be reaching the proverbial Biblical 3 scores and 10—–70 years.
Mike Massaquoi, keep that goat farm handy because nothing else do I love in my cassava and potato leaves soups than goat and monkey meat ( which we call in Liberia Spring Mutton ). When zi return home after completing my retirement home , you will get a lot of calls from me.
I thank God for helping to reach this milestone. Hundreds of school and college mates of St. Edward’s Primary, Freetown ; St. Francis Primary, Bo ; CE School, Bo ; CKC , Bo ,FBC , University of London and workmates at the Secondary Technical SchooI, Freetown ; Monrovia Central High , University of Liberia / KRTTI Teachers training program, World Bank and UN and hordes of journalism colleagues , who started this journey with me have gone to rest, very sadly indeed. It was not because I was better than them . It is just by the grace of God that I survived to hit this landmark. May all those who have gone ahead of me continue to rest in perfect peace.
At 70, there is going to be a very radical alteration of my life. I will be leaving most of the forums because I want to rest now and enjoy my retirement. I will be keeping my job of an international elections observer but will work at home as a consultant and Public Relations. Cocorioko Newspaper will continue but the focus is going to be moderated.
I will no longer be able to participate in forums. I will use my time now to complete my memoirs which I believe will be controversial but thrilling and other books I am working on about Sierra Leone Journalism since Independence , Sierra Leone politics , Liberian politics, my days at the UN, and of course the history and blockbuster moments of Sierra Leone football. I promised Kama Dumbuya, Abu Syrian, Garrincha, Kolleh Dumbuya, Tommy Rowe, Manneh Peters, Tommy Manneh , Conton Sesay, Gbatieh Davies( whom I met in Liberia ) , Leslie Allen, etc. etc. that I will pen down for posterity what they did for Sierra Leone . I have to fulfill my promise.
I also will be want to finish my sociopolitical satire called KAKPINDI . This is a novel about the bitterness, dysfunctionality and polarized and tribally toxic nature of Sierra Leone politics, seen through the eyes and first person narration of Kakpindi Gbow ( Mende ) from Bo, a frustrated FBC graduate who could not get a good job during the Siaka Stevens APC era and is a bitter critic of the APC and his alter ego , a semi- illiterate ISU officer, Yapo Bangura ( Limba ) who is enjoying as Close protection security of Vice – President S.I. Koroma.
Both men lived in the same politically toxic yard at Bass Street, Brookfields, with their landlord being a conservative Krio man called Pa. Tombo Johnson, who considers provincials as illiterates and bush people.
The ugliness of tribalism, revenge, treachery, double standards, sycophancy, extremism, vindictiveness , opportunism, self- aggrandizement , corruption, lawlessness, thuggery, extrajudicial killings, stagemanaged events to implicate opponents, impunity etc in Sierra Leone will be graphically exposed in this novel .
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