PROTECT FREETOWN FROM POPULATION EXPLOSION TO AVIOD FUTURE ENVIRONMENTAL CALAMITIES
By Kabs Kanu
When we were growing up in Freetown, the population was manageable and thus the horrific environmental destruction presently going on was unknown.
Today, things have changed. Everybody wants to come to Freetown. And this SLPP Government is enabling thousands of its people to leave the provinces to come and live in Freetown , for political reasons ( To erase the demographic edge their enemies the APC hold in the Western Area). Lots of lands in the Freetown peninsular have been sold to predominantly SLPP supporters from
the Southeast in what is turning out to be a resettlement program.
But this is one of the tragic errors this brainless government only keen on ethnic and regional hegemony is committing that is hurting our country so bad.
Instead of bringing multitudes from the Southeast ,especially , and the provinces in general to overpopulate Freetown, this thoughtless SLPP Government needs to protect our capital . People being brought in and those already there are creating environmental disaster , destroying forests and building in swamps, waterways and up hills. We are setting the stage for an environmental catastrophe that our country would not be able to handle.
It is shameful that after 62 years of nationhood, we in Sierra Leone cannot still feed ourselves and why not ? Farming has become the most neglected vocation in the country. People have abandoned the provinces and left rich farmlands wasting . Today, miles and miles of lush swamps and forests could be seen lying waste, with no farming activity of any kind. Nobody wants to farm anymore, preferring the glamour of the urban areas and the capital instead.
Instead of engaging in vainglory by enabling a politically – motivated population shift to the urban areas , the SLPP government should initiate programs to entice people to return to the hinterland. The government should launch a return to the soil and feed the nation program to engage Sierra Leoneans to return to farming.
Freetown and its environs hold no prospects for the people. Employment opportunities are abysmal and even much- sought after government jobs and contracts are diminishing, with the serious economic collapse staring at the nation and the SLPP government policy to employ only tribal and political cronies .
Migrating to Freetown is only an exercise in frustration and disappointment . Even business opportunities are non-existent and where people are able to engage in businesses at all, the profit levels are negligible . The chronic hardship in the country is making commodities hard to sell. And when you consider the prohibitive and insane cost of living , including rent, which render cash worthless, there is no wisdom in abandoning the provinces to live in Freetown.
Migrants are only helping to exacerbate the serious environmental problems bedeviling Freetown, which, if not corrected, will one day turn our capital into a theatre of calamities.
