SANCTIONS: NIGER CUTS THE NATIONAL BUDGET BY 40%
We are reaching the point of reality in Niger where soldiers kicked their president out and declared themselves as the new leaders of that country. Months later they are still detaining the president and his family. Bad as that may be, they now face a more serious challenge than the mess they have driven themselves into.
All but three countries in ECOWAS have cut ties with them, they have lost a key external partner in the European Union and the Americans are moving slowly towards declaring what the soldiers did in that country as a coup and that comes with a lot of consequences for bilateral funding support and security cooperation.
Here is a country that is facing a dangerous insurgency being forced to cut its budget by 40% instead of spending more than the projected 5 billion US dollars. Which areas of the development agenda will suffer this cut? We know defence spending is bound to increase. How will the government and people of Niger cope with such deep cuts?
1. Anyway, while we wait for budget proposals from Mali and Burkina Faso, why can’t those two neighbors plus Guinea put some money together and bail Niger out? They all came together to challenge ECOWAS. They can do it again.
2. The junta leader can easily fly over to the Kremlin to meet with Vladimir Putin and some oil money will hit the central bank in Niger. It’s that easy.
3. The junta can decide to bring home all foreign reserves and spend. What’s the point of having money in a foreign bank when the domestic budget is facing a 40% cut?
4. They should now mobilize the same crowds they encouraged to attack France, bring them to the stadium and tell them to the stadium and tell them of the impending struggle. Let’s see if they will accept it as the price they will pay for supporting the junta and return home dancing in support of the junta.
5. The soldiers should simply release their president and return to barracks. Too many soldiers have been killed since they took power and now homes are going to feel the pain of military adventurism.
MYSTERIOUS KILLINGS IN ECUADORIAN PRISONS
It won’t be long before Hollywood brings what is happening in Ecuador to the big screen because it’s a fantastic plot line. SEVEN guys accused of plotting and killing a guy who was threatening to win the presidential election in that country have all been killed inside prison while awaiting trial. On the first day, a small riot took place in the jail and SIX of the people we are talking about went down. A few days later, the SEVENTH and final guy was taken out. The president of that country has now sacked the Prison Director. Is that all?
Questions are now being asked all over the world about the situation. How could a prison system be so bad that high value criminals like those are shot dead inside a prison? And all the president could do is to sack the Prison boss.
1. We have to be excused for believing firmly that there are people in government who have vested interest in killing those people so that they don’t go to trial and tell the real story of how the former presidential candidate met his death.
2. Obviously the prison service played a big part in those killings by allowing professionals either from among those already detained or from outside to enter that prison and execute that job. It’s either they’ve collected money directly or their paymasters have promised them jobs in the new dispensation that wouldn’t include the slain candidate.
3. Maybe there is a lesson here for those running for big political offices. We warn them not to go on the campaign trail promising to arrest those in politics and business who are involved in corruption. Please wait until you enter the office before starting the fight because at that time you have the state machinery behind you. We all know that corruption can fight back.
4. What if such a thing were to happen in Sierra Leone? There are some in this country who think everywhere else on earth is better than Sierra Leone. See this Human Rights thing we talk about daily and tell us what you think about Ecuador. We have not analyzed the political background to all of this because we don’t want to complicate things further.
SLFA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE BLUNDERS AGAIN
The appointment of a football coach is normally followed by serious controversy and to say we didn’t expect that after the SLFA refused to renew Keister’s contract would be a wicked lie. In fact the ground was set for what is happening now even before Keister’s contract ended. We knew that talks were at an advanced stage with Mohamed Kallon himself. Some of his supporters on social media actually went ahead and announced that the job was his. At that point the SLFA looked the other way. It’s for them to explain why they didn’t quickly close down that social media frenzy. They also did not use that as an opportunity to put the whole process of getting a new coach into the public domain. They failed to do so and allowed speculation to thrive.
Then it emerged that the Executive Committee had met and decided against Mohamed Kallon in favor of Amidu Karim. First of all we have nothing against Karim. We however think he represents a step backwards. We couldn’t care less whether he is provisional nor interim coach. He never set even our local league on fire during his playing days and we have no idea what he did in Egypt. As a coach since his return, we can only say the same thing. He is there now so we have to pray for results. FIVE THOUSAND US DOLLARS is a lot of money. While he smiles all the way to the bank we want results on the pitch.
Our sources tell us that at the highest level in the SLFA Kallon was told to get ready for the job that ended up with his former employee. How can any professional organization behave like that?
The complex things we’ve told about how Kallon became the favorite only to be ditched will unfold in this column as things gather steam.
MEANWHILE THE REFEREE’S ASSISTANT AND THE LADY IN YELLOW LEGGINGS
A short video showing some intriguing touch line engagement between a referee’s assistant and a lady in yellow leggings and white blouse has gone viral. We clearly saw this young lady move up to the touch line to confront the match official with some spectators shouting and having fun in the background as the distracted official had an animated conversation with the woman.
The lady punched the referee’s assistant. Then there was more laughing and shouting in the background. Now the man, obviously shamed by the bravery of the lady, landed a punch on her face and some of those who were having fun decided to intervene.
There has been no explanation of what really went wrong so we are now left to try and find out, especially when the two parties have not addressed the media about that brief touch line engagement.
1. Maybe the guy made a dodgy offside call that the lady didn’t like and because there is no VAR in Sierra Leone she decided to teach the guy a lesson in how to be a good match official.
2. It could also be that the fight had nothing to do with the match. It’s possible that the referee’s assistant is one of those running away from their domestic responsibilities and here was an opportunity to deal with him.
3. We are only speculating but how was it possible for all of that to happen without official stewards intervening to stop the lady from attacking the guy?
4. Those people around were having fun until the guy decided to retaliate. Shame on them.
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