By Sorie Ibrahim Kanu
CULLED FROM THE COCORIOKO FACEBOOK FORUM
When we were kinds in the late 60s and early 70s, while farming rice fields in the vast swamps in the “Walla” region, one of the most beautiful view one can ever have was that of the spectacular scene of the blue mountain ranges of the Freetown peninsular.
Shrouded with an untampered equatorial vegetation, the awe stricken picturesque natural design of the mountainous stretch of land, amounting to nearly 32 kilometers, overlooking the Atlantic coast, has all along being indescribable. We used to get beaten or yelled at work in the swamp, when trying to keep a fixed look on the gagged green foliage with its spectacular scene!
However, one keeps wondering on why the once envied natural beauty of the Freetown peninsula has turned to an ugly rugged place, almost looks like a place in the Sahara Desert! What went wrong and how did the destruction of the beauty of Freetown happen?!
Until the late 80s, the top hills of Freetown were thickly covered with canopy vegetation, everything looks green. There were natural streams that used to carry rain water from the top hills to be cleanly emptied into the Atlantic Ocean. Freetown never flooded. All the city gutters used to quickly empty water to the sea or the ocean without any blockages.
This beautiful description of Freetown became short lived when the Foday Sankoh rebel war broke in the country! During Foday Sankoh rebel campaign, thousands of marauding blood thirsty young men and women, particularly from Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Liberia and of course, Sierra Leone were brought in to the country.
These young vandals were deliberately geared to destroy lives and property in every part of Sierra Leone. Poor and deprived people in the rural village suffered immensely in the hands of those merciless cold blooded murderers. The people were forced to abandoned their villages and towns for safer places.
When the war intensified, the historical demography of Sierra Leone changed as all those hired mercenaries started to penetrate into the population. This continued till the on slot of the rebels to the capital city of Freetown.
It took the rebels nearly six months entrenching into Freetown and its environ awaiting the final command to ransack the city! When Foday Sankoh and Sam ءBockarie ordered the attack, thousands of our people’s lives perished.!
The intervention of the ECOWMOC forces saved Freetown from being wiped off the history of Sierra Leone. When the rebels were overpowered, most of those who escaped infiltrated the top hills.
After, the peace accord, those once butchers who have occupied the once thick forest of Freetown top hills started to brush the bushes, learn bad Krio, sell coal and wood. In connivance with some unpatriotic elements in the state seized the golden opportunity to plunder the top hills by grabbing the land!
Most of the bloody scenes we are experiencing in the country today is the direct of Foday Sankoh rebel war that brought into Sierra Leone all the bloody and ether ruthless killers or gangstars from the streets of Burkina Faso, Abudjan, Monrovia to destroy our once peaceful nation in West Africa.
If a critical study and survey could be done on the original homes and families of many occupants of the hills of Freetown, a conclusion could shock the nation on how Sierra lone has absorbed the most dangerous blood mongrels in west Africa.
Today, bloody scenes are every where, the slaughtering of girls, boys, women and men in the most gruesome Manner!
We therefore, call on the authority to seriously conduct a classical test on those occupants, who plundered the virgin forest of the peninsula. The nation wants to know who are those land sellers of the mountains?!
If Freetown is to ever regain its beauty and cleanliness, cogent action is needed to retrieve the usurped land of the peninsula in order to restore the natural beauty of the land!
