By: Nancy Grace Sewah
The Waterloo Highway is the road that leads to the Central Business District (CBD) of the capital. People from various parts of the East-End part of the capital use this road to go about their day-to-day businesses, but plying this road at certain hours of the day has never been easy for those who use it because of the attitude of the COMMERCIAL PODA PODA DRIVERS.
At certain point in time during the day, more especially in the morning hours, and at around 4pm upwards, the road gets busier because those are the times most people who come to town for businesses prepare to come and to return to their various dwelling places. Drivers who drive on this road make things so difficult for passengers by running their vehicles half ways. They take advantage of situation whenever they see people jam packed at boss stops and are in hast to come to town for their normal businesses or return to their homes. The conductors (apprentices) and drivers will make the people to be running after their vehicles ups and down. They will only allow the people to onboard their vehicles if the person is going for the half way they call for or if the passenger is willing to pay more than twice the actual fare that is to be paid.
Being around the Ola During Children’s Hospital (Cottage) at Fourah Bay Road, at round 7-8pm,I saw an unfortunate incident that occurred at that point in time. A lady who was standing by the main road waiting to onboard a vehicle to return home was badly pushed into the gutter by the crowd that was running after one of the PODA PODA’s which was coming to offload passengers and pick up those who suit its comfort. The incident was gruesome in so much that, the lady could not hold her balance, and so she had to fall in the gutter which causes her scrap on one of her ankles and bruises on her body. Sympathizing with her by help a man who was waiting for transportation at the same location to left her up from the gutter with some of her belongings, as she said some got missing immediately, she got pushed, Juliana was able to say this to EXPO in tears…
“I have been standing here to wait for a means of transportation for over two hours now I could not get one, not because vehicles are not available, but because the drivers are just too wicked to us the passengers. The majority of them run half ways and some ask us passengers to pay more than two times the actual amount which should be paid from Bombay to Waterloo which most of us might not have. Most of us who come to this town every day to trade are petty-traders; what we make from sales for the day is what are we survive on with our family members.”
Almost all of the commercial drivers in the capital always do contrary to the instructions that comes from above; if they are given a price list for different distances, they will not go by it, instead, they will do what they thinks is right for them by making an increment on the prices. Even the destinations where they are supposed to run to and fro are boldly written on the vehicles, but they will rather do as they want by running half ways or make passengers to pay more than two times of what should be the actual cost for a particular distance. And these are some of the things that have the tendency of hindering the growth of any nation, because where the people of a country do not have love for themselves, there will be no sympathy for one and other, and that kind of attitudes water down the effort of any ruling government there.
“All what we know in this country is to blame government for everything, even for our own mistakes; what we should do that we are not doing. We want government to give us everything that will make lives comfortable for us, but we are not ready do practice what we are always instructed by the government to do so that we can get the kind of living condition we are expecting from the government to provide for us. If the Police Force did not put measures in place to properly regulate the activities of the city commercial drivers, the next thing the government and the people of this country will be hearing is that passengers and drivers have started killing themselves, because some of us are tied of the cruel attitude of most of these drivers and their conductors towards us, the passengers.” Mr. Aruna Kamara lamented to EXPO.
Sierra Leone is that country where the people are too conscious of their rights and what the country should provide for them without taking into cognizance the responsibilities they owe to the country; it should be a reciprocal thing. You as a citizen should play your own part by abiding by the rules and regulations of the state, maintaining the peace and stability of the state, love for one another, etc, and then the state in turn will provide you what you need.
We do admire countries that have developed within the shortest possible time or are fast developing, but we are failing to figure out what led to that. For a country to be developed is not just the sole responsibility of the government, but all the people of that country. Everyone needs to put hands-on deck to support the good initiatives of the government as long as it is for the betterment of that nation as a whole. By so doing, we can have a better Sierra Leone to enjoy and even our generations yet unborn will come and inherit that better Sierra Leone.
Copy right –Printed in the Expo Times Week end Newspaper on Friday 13th October, 2023 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)
