Upcoming: the 6th of January in history
Most historic: My dearest mother Evelyn Adekumbi Kathleen (nee Boston) passed into eternity, in London, on the 6th of January 1998.
On that day I
called the most senior surviving member of my family, Samuel Olu Beccles-Davies
to inform him.
“There are Nigerian soldiers in the house”, was the first thing he told me, after I had greeted him “Good evening, Uncle Olu”. As if I was about to spill some state secrets. He was then the Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, but lived at home,
at his own house and not in the official CJ quarters/residence, which made me wonder all
the more, what the hell were Nigerian soldiers doing at his home, disturbing his peace and quiet? Before I
could break the sad news, I found myself asking, “ But what are Nigerian soldiers
doing at your home, are they guarding you?”
He answered,
“They are looking for Johnny Paul Koroma “
“Where is
he?” I asked him
“The
rascal is up in the hills”, he replied softly.
(On the run, like the Maroons of yore,
I supposed. There’s lots of Maroons history in Sierra Leone.)
I myself had many hideouts in Freetown and the residence
of the Chief Justice seemed to me to be the most unlikely place to find the
fugitive, but of course the most unlikely place could also be the best hiding place, after all Chief Justice Beccles-Davies had appointed Johnny Paul, Head of
State, most likely at gunpoint and so would you, or maybe not, at gun-point.
My Uncle Olu
was a man of absolute integrity, which doesn’t mean that he was willing to die
on the cross at the germane moment/ commit suicide rather than “appoint” Johnny
Paul, at gunpoint. Tall, dignified, upright, always impeccably dressed in suit
and tie is how I always remember him since I last saw him circa, 1965. He lived
in his own house at Wellington Street. I once sent Hugo Herm (a Swedish SIDA
man – later Lutheran Help) to him, but Uncle Olu didn’t want to be compromised, so he said, he didn’t want to see or meet or play with anybody, especially not
any foreign dignitaries or non-dignitaries in his own free / leisure time – all this whilst the R.U.F:
War was still raging. The goodly Mr Herm met other people such as my cousin Ebun
Wright, and even brought me back some Sierra Leone newspapers…
Fast forward, exactly one year later, on the 6th of January 1999 in Sierra Leone the R.U.F. invaded Freetown in what is known in history as “Operation Spare no Living Thing."
Some of you have only heard about the genocide in Rwanda.
There’s no point spending too much time on what was about to happen then in Sierra Leone, but to date, especially the Creole population of Freetown is eternally grateful to ECOMOG, the Nigerian Military and the Nigerian Airforce in particular, for bombing Freetown and driving the Rebels out of town. I said “the Creole population” in particular, because I was made to understand that whilst the Civil War was raging in the hinterland, the good Creole folks with the usual compound English names were more or less indifferent, dismissed what was going on in “the Protectorate” as typically barbaric, shrugged it off as of no real concern of theirs, and Mr. Johnson is reported to have said, “Let those illiterate, God-forsaken savages, continue butchering themselves and each other. As long as they don’t bring their savagery here!” By “here”, Mr. Johnson had meant “Freetown”, but then, as if from nowhere, the RUF struck on the 6th of January, 1999 in what was Operation Spare No Living Soul, and then Mr. Johnson’s foremost concern was the safety of his wife and his daughters, he would have to conceal them from the lusts of the vengeful horde of rapists who would want to violate them right in front of his eyes. So, he issued orders to his houseboy and the night watchmen, gave them instructions to barricade the house, but he was still in agony; weeping, he recited Psalm 23; "Dear Lord, the boats to Banjul are fully loaded, the Lungi Airport is under siege and there’s no escape but in Thee I trust.”
On the whole the Sierra Leone Creoles are reminiscent of these lines from Tom Lehrer's National Brotherhood Week :
"Oh the protestants hate the Catholics
And the
Catholics hate the Protestants
And the
Hindus hate the Muslims
And
everybody hates the Jews,"
With regard to Sierra Leone, it would be,
"Oh the Mendes hate the Temnes
And the Temnes hate the Mendes"
for "the Jews", you could substitute the last line with
"And everybody hates the Creoles"
On the whole, the Creoles don't have any problems with any of the tribes in all of Africa outside Sierra Leone, but if you want to know what a horrible piece of human vermin Cornelius is, then just go and ask Kortoh Muhammadu a non-Creole, and he will tell you...
Sometime later here in Stockholm the then Nigerian Ambassador to Sweden told me at a Nigerian get-together, “No price is too high to pay when it comes to helping our Sierra Leone people!”
Well, “A week is a long time in politics” said Harold Wilson, and we all know that this is absolutely true as the USA hurtles along to meet that date in history, the 6th of January, 2021, when Congress will formally validate the Electoral College votes – approximately two weeks after Jesus ’Birthday Celebrations and all the Season’s Greetings for a Happy New Year, could come Trump’s final spiel. At this point, it’s still hanging in the air and people are being advised to "keep calm"
Will he or won’t
he, pull the trigger?
The question
has been asked at ISRAPUNDIT
Whether he does
or not, we will be reading the post-mortem HERE (where it now says "Joe Biden is wearing a " kick me" sign")
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