FERENSOLA
thestorieswetell
When I was growing up, my mother would warn me never to direct anyone where alcohol or cigarettes were sold. There was never any doubt she was going to give me the beating of my life, that would be the bearest minimum punishment, if she finds out I was patronising the two. During my primary school days, I was on holiday to my maternal aunt in Freetown. One day, she gave me some money and something wrapped in a piece of cloth I later discovered to be an empty pint of Guinness, for the attention of a beer parlour attendant next door. She had to send me parking when I told her I had a covenant with my mother, her senior sister, never to have anything to do with alcohol, and that I was bound by it. My aunt’s decision to send me away emanated from an argument she had with her husband – I eavesdropped as they exchanged words. According to him, I was nothing but a disrespectful child – his wife tried to tell him I was just a kid that was brainwashed by an overprotective mother. But he would have none of it.
As I got older, I started taking an interest in reggae music, so I was frequenting some ghettos around. The songs played there were entirely the reason behind my visits. Most of my mates, justifiably so, feared I was going to be lured into smoking cannabis sativa. But thankfully, I never cut loose of my mother’s apron string. Whatever she’d told me about child delinquency had stuck like glue. I was only interested in the messages that were mostly promoting a nonviolent approach to the world’s problems.
But today, with the multiple choices scattered all over the place, and with no attempt to play God, I’m afraid proponents of the apocalypse are beginning to think they’ll finally get a much deserved verdict. The scale at which our youths are going about indulging these substances is unprecedented.
I was at the Lumley Lorry Park in Freetown last month, I saw the police helplessly watching a man well into his mid 60s, he was the attendant of the public toilet, selling kush to his customers, who were all young men. I see the effects of this dreaded drug at a joint I visit everyday in Makeni. One of the boys was selling biscuit cake when he suddenly got the urge. So he went to the joint and smoked himself to stupor. He had a lot of money out of the sales he’d made earlier on, in a bag strapped to his waist. He was going to lose all of it to those opportunistic predators who stood by, but for my intervention. A few minutes after he came back from the dead and found out his bag and money were gone, he started rolling on the muddy ground. I went up to him and requested he brought his folks. But knowing fully well what awaited him if he turned up without the money, he instead pleaded with me to call a number he was going to give me. When I called to enquire, the person on the other end said she knew the boy, that he was her son. When she finally came and received a full account of events and her money untouched, I was surprised she had no clue the type of choices her son makes when he’s out in the streets.
Unfortunately, on daily basis, I see men in police and military uniform frequenting joints you would have described prohibitive for sworn officers of the law, except for enforcement. Of course there are some I know personally, so there is nothing like they wore the uniform to make those institutions look bad in the eyes of the public. Some of them are even selling kush to their mates. When I see photos of them behaving like zombies on social media, I could only raise my hands up in shame and then fear for the worse. In the course of my investigations, I also had evidence that some senior police officers are collecting hush/protection money from those in the kush supply chain. Sometimes some rogue officers will visit the joints, empty the pockets of all those that are high on kush and leave. For them, it’s like a fallback after a very bad day in the office.
