Well, Health Minister Dr. Abu Bakarr Fofanah (photo) has his own story to tell. He recently had himself registered in his home village of Kolisorkoh in the north of Sierra Leone but things did not go as smoothly as he expected. Here is what happened to him:
By Dr. Abu Bakarr Fofanah, Minister of Health and Sanitation, Sierra Leone.
There are a few issues. I will encourage everyone to go to his local community and support his/her people. The few issues I noted PERSONALLY -l mean during my own registration are as follows:
1. Serious concern over the level of education of the people recruited. E.g. The person that registered me could not spell Western Area ( He wrote westand Area). Politician he spelled politican. There were a few others I could not recall.
2.Type of birth: This means if you were a singlet or twin or triplet or quadruplet etc at birth. He interpreted it to me to mean how many of us were born to our mother in total. I had to educate him.
3. I told him I got married at the registry which should be civil. He ticked Christian marriage. Meaning he had no clue as to the types of marriages and yet he is required to complete information on marriages
4. I gave the name of my mother as Ya Marie. He entered it as Yimari meaning he is not even recruited from the locality- at least the district. Prefixes to names like Ya, Pa, Kortho are very common in the northern region, particularly in the Themne dominated areas like my lovely Kolisorkoh Village.
5. The sorriest part: After more than 40 minutes ( I can understand the delay with me being the first ) my last name came as Fornah as against the Fofanah which is actually written in the form that the data entry officer had in his very hand. When I protested they told me they cannot edit that entry now as the system does not allow them to for security reasons. This I understand. They told me they will have to display the registration for final verification before the final voters list is compiled. It is at that stage that editing will be allowed. This means that I have to keep track of this display date (no travelling out of the country!) until that correction is made. These are just some of the implications of these silly mistakes.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, SUPPORT THE PROCESS BY GOING TO YOUR LOCALITIES AND HELP YOUR PEOPLE. THIS IS A NATIONAL CALL. NOT SECTIONAL PLEASE, AS I BELIEVE WHAT I HAVE NARRATED MAY NOT BE LIMITED TO KOLISORKOH VILLAGE.
