President Kabbah Inducted As Honorary Alumnus of Government Secondary School Kenema
By Yusuf Alghali

23rd April 2004 - The alumni association of the Government Secondary School Kenema (GSSK), has inducted President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah as the first honorary alumnus of the school during an impressive ceremony held at the school grounds on Friday 23rd April 2004.

In the citation read by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Professor Septimus Kaikai, also an old boy of the school, the Kenema Old Students Association (KOSA), inter alia, recognised the inductee's invaluable contribution to the peace process, the progressive improvement of the welfare of the people of Sierra Leone as well as the marked socio-economic developments currently taking place in the country in spite of all the odds.

Responding, President Kabbah, who was inducted with admission number JSS K/HA OO1 2004, called on the alumni association to adopt a mission statement that would help replenish the country's depleting stock of role models.

While lamenting the dearth of role models to serve as shining examples to be emulated by the nation's youthful population, the Head of State encouraged teachers to join forces with KOSA in an effort to mould the character of students for future leadership roles.

Meanwhile, as campaigning heats up for the upcoming local council elections next month, President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah took the opportunity to reject suggestions that he may be favouring one or more candidates for local council positions.

Speaking shortly after the induction ceremony, the President categorically denied backing any aspiring candidate, stressing that he could say the same for his Vice President, the Sierra Leone Peoples Party Chairman and Secretary General.

"I can vouch that we all have no favoured candidate…. I know this because that is a respected policy of our party," the President declared, pointing out that local people themselves must decide and choose whosoever they want under the transparent system put in place for that purpose.
Continuing, the President also disclosed a USD 30m. World Bank loan to help kick start the entire decentralisation process and underscored the need to have competent people manage the funds. He said: "If the money is not properly utilised, government will have to account for it to the World Bank and if incompetent people are allowed to misuse it, poor service delivery will be the result."

President Kabbah also went on to reprimand those opposition party activists who argue that traditional rulers must have nothing whatsoever to do with the local council elections process. He said such uninformed statements coming from opposition politicians could only help to confuse the minds of the public. The President maintained that Paramount Chiefs had always been part of the national security network in the country since colonial times, adding that a chief thus had a duty to intervene if local council electioneering threatened the security of his chiefdom. He said the Paramount Chief was the first port of call if any security-related matter were to develop in his chiefdom. "If anything goes wrong he is the first to be blamed, followed by the Resident Minister and the Head of State in the final resort," he added.

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