By Millicent Senava Mannah
The Calaba Town Community is one of the fastest growing communities in the East End of Freetown with people from diverse backgrounds residing there with the location of few manufacturing industries that offer mainly menial jobs certain and support certain community-driven projects as a way of honouring or rolling out their Corporate Social Responsibilities.
As the population within the community continues to expand the vast majority of residents are grappling on a daily basis with easily accessing basic social amenities like pipe-borne drinking water, proper medical facilities, good road networks, getting commercial transport easily etc all putting a heavy toll or strain on especially children who have to trek long distances in order to fetch water with the resultant negative consequences of encountering fatalities from accidents, getting unwanted pregnancies and kids performing abysmally in their academic pursuits.
When recently a reporter of this medium visited the community with the aim of sound views of community residents on various issues related to the community, many were very willing to share brilliant ideas and proffer workable recommendations.
With mixed reactions, some expressed the view that their past political representatives did little to enhance development taking place within the community as their main focus mainly directed to personal aggrandizement instead of seeking the general good.
However, there is another school of thought with the strong conviction that the negative attitudes of certain residents to always set development back, their lack of participation in undertaking development projects could speak volumes why certain constraints cannot be easily surmounted.
They argue that as a matter of fact, these are the very individuals who are destroying transformers and other Government properties with reckless abandon.
The greatest problem that was often mentioned as responsible for the constraints the majority are currently going through has been largely attributed to ineffective representation by those whom they entrusted the authority to champion their affairs.
“Although some of them made very lofty promises when lobbying for our votes yet when they succeeded in attaining political power they became strangers to us,” they expressed disgust with an elderly man, by the name of Osman Karankay lamented disclosing how this time round they will not repeat the mistake of voting for someone who promises big things only ending up paying them intermittent visits instead of residing with them, know their felt needs and find ways of bringing the people together to solve certain societal ills.
When a cross section of young people of the Calaba Town community was engaged to have their opinions of Mohamed Cellu Bah vying for the Parliamentary Seat most of them overwhelmingly stated that they believe that he (Mohamed Cellu Bah)has been divinely directed to boldly step forward in order to vie for the position of Member of Parliament vehemently pointing out that they are of the strong conviction that his leveled headedness, charisma and networking skills are all innate assets he possesses to provide the effective representation that residents of Constituency 114 have been yearning for as they strongly believe that he has all the wherewithal, the requisite skills necessary to facilitate development to transpire and the masses from the teething challenges they are confronting daily to access basic amenities needed to keep body and soul together.
“Mohamed Cellu Bah is no stranger to us,we know him, he has lived with us and we are quite aware of what he is capable of doing and that is why we are strongly giving him our total support,” they said unanimously with one of them wittingly saying that the devil that is known is better than the angel that has not been seen.
The Calaba Town residents reiterated that they decided to throw their weight behind the dynamic and progressive young man in the person of Mohamed Cellu Bah with most of them vowing that they will go at extreme lengths to ensure they effectively campaign for him and ensure that he emerges as the elected Member of Parliament for Constituency 114, Calaba Town, after Wellington in the East End of Freetown.
Most of those engaged were eager to inform that Mohamed hails from an influential business family within the Calaba Town Community but stressed that despite the fact he is from a very good family background, nevertheless, he is not the type of proud person as he is always seen rubbing shoulders with the high and low in society.
“As long as he is contesting under the All People’s Congress Party we will give him our mammoth support because we believe in the party and in him in as much as we have so far seen what he has done,” a guy popularly known as Gibo confidently stated.
They spelt out the good things that Mohamed has so far donein rendering scholarships to primary, secondary school pupils and those in tertiary institutions as well as helping others to get the subject requirements needed to enter Universities.
“It is only a person with a golden heart, love and compassion that will exhibit such a passion to help the needy and he is someone whom we believe could effectively represent us if given the opportunity to do so,” a middle age woman operating a cookery shop spoke glowingly.
Some explained that when disasters befell the community in the past, Mohamed Cellu Bah led others ,to go about a search and rescue operation. He as well personally provided shelter for the homeless, food and non-food items for the affected victims wishing them God’s protection and healing.
From what was also discovered, Mohamed Cellu Bah is the current Director of the National Emergency Advocacy Team-Sierra Leone (HEATS), a Civil Society Organization, that is mainly focused on advocating for the rights and privileges of the down trodden, the marginalized and disadvantaged members of society with premium being placed on promoting the welfare of women and children, considered to be the most vulnerable in society.
This advocacy team, which he personally founded, was very supportive to victims during various disasters that have befell residents in that part of the country with the provision of food and non food items to those that were affected.
As a matter of fact the Civil Society Organization developed an App which was able to capture the exact data of victims of the flash flood disaster that recently affected a community in Freetown, with the information or data turning out to be very significant to the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) and other Non-Government Organizations in their response interventions.
This medium was intimated that Mohamed Cellu Bah is fully paid up member of the APC Party and has played crucial roles in advancing the interests of the party forward. He is always present at any important party function and highly respected for the love he has exhibited for the party which why most of the residents our reporter spoke with said they have no doubt or hesitation that the elders of the party will endorse his election bid.
When our reporter caught up with the man of the moment, Mohamed Cellu Bah, he informed that his willingness and determination to turn around or improve on the terrible road network within the Calaba Town community, when he becomes the elected Member of Parliament of Constituency 114 and his stance to continue his educational empowerment of young people within and out of the Calaba Town Community through his sponsorships will be top on his development agenda.
By all indication and based on the thorough findings and investigation that our reporter conducted it seems that the majority of residents of Calaba Town are willing to choose Mohamed Cellu Bah as the next APC Member of Parliament for Constituency 114.
