{"id":22166,"date":"2011-04-06T01:38:17","date_gmt":"2011-04-06T05:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=22166"},"modified":"2011-04-06T01:38:17","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T05:38:17","slug":"cheep-lies-and-poor-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=22166","title":{"rendered":"Cheap lies and poor propaganda"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine who recently arrived from the USA drew my attention to the ongoing construction work on the much adorned Congo Cross\/Wilkinson Road in the west end of the city.\u00a0 (Photo: Adeyemi Paul, author)<\/em><\/p>\n

My friend wanted to know the rationale behind the expansion and who stands to benefit after the completion of the road.<\/p>\n

Some of his questions, I admitted, I didn\u2019t have answers for. Personally, I told him that when completed the road will stand out as the pride of Sierra Leone. He asked why. I pointed out to him that for the first time in the history of this 50-year old country, we will be driving on a four-lane highway, a major infrastructural development initiated by the Ernest Bai Koroma led government.<\/p>\n

My USA friend stood aghast and asked: \u201cyou said what, a four-lane highway?\u201d<\/p>\n

The guy was amused. He was turning things in his head. For him, the idea of a four lane highway in the Sierra Leonean context was an amazing joke.<\/p>\n

\u201cAde,\u201d he turned to me, his eyes wide open. \u201cYou call a two track road four-lane?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that is what the authorities here want us to believe,\u201d I replied rather embarrassingly.<\/p>\n

I recalled that when the idea of a four lane was mooted, it created a whole lot of excitement among the local population here. Today everyone is looking forward to the speedy completion of our darling road with much excitement.<\/p>\n

I turned to my friend and said to him: \u201cwhether you like it or not, Wilkinson Road is a four lane highway\u201d.<\/p>\n

The man was a little cynical. \u201cIn the US when we talk of four-lane, it means four vehicles going opposite direction way. What I\u2018m seeing at Wilkinson Road is a two track road \u2013 two vehicles running opposite direction,\u201d the young man explained.<\/p>\n

With a subdued expression of ignorance, I told him that Sierra Leone was not the USA. Our own meaning of a four-lane might be different from what the Americans consider as a four-lane highway.<\/p>\n

Upon a second thought, that is, after listening to my friend, I realized that as old as fifty years as is Sierra Leone, even the most educated, do not understand what a four-lane highway means. We have all swallowed the lie ignorantly, cheap lie at that, just\u00a0 as President Koroma said at the recent Makeni Agricultural show, that during his second term in office Sierra Leone would no longer import rice.<\/p>\n

Cheap lie and poor propaganda at work again!<\/p>\n

Sierra Leoneans have heard that before: \u201cBy 2007 we\u2019ll not go to bed hungry\u2026our stomachs will be full\u201d. We were told so by our then president.<\/p>\n

Now it is President Koroma yet again raising false hopes in Sierra Leoneans.<\/p>\n

Why is it that politicians take delight in telling lies, I ask myself? How is President Koroma going to do the magic? The one million euro question!<\/p>\n

And listen to him: he inherited 30 tractors when he took office in 2007 and boasted that in a short spell in office, his government was able to acquire 300 tractors for the farmers. But an old farmer retorted upon hearing his promise and remarked \u2018when there were only 30 tractors a cup of rice was being sold between Le 300-400. Now that we have three hundred tractors at the disposal of farmers a cup of rice is being sold at Le 1,000.<\/p>\n

Given the current economic trend, how will President Koroma achieve his goal? In any case, Sierra Leoneans welcomed his pronouncement with great expectation. The day we stop importing rice, that day every Sierra Leonean will go bed with a full belly, the dream of the last president.<\/p>\n

Like President Kabbah, like President Ernest Koroma, the saying goes. We pray that their dreams may come true, but Sierra Leoneans are tired of listening to cheap lies.<\/p>\n

Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine who recently arrived from the USA drew my attention to the ongoing construction work on the much adorned Congo Cross\/Wilkinson Road […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[671,1],"tags":[3892,7810],"class_list":["post-22166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-uncategorized","tag-infrastructure","tag-sierra-leone-roads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}