Who the hell is this Mohamed Sankoh?

Special Commentary

Who the hell is this Mohamed Sankoh?

By Theophilus S. Gbenda (Moe Fire)

I remember beating him not long ago in a press exchange that lasted just over a week. I can beat him again, again and again, because he is as empty as the word itself.

As I have come to know him, Mohamed Sankoh, fondly called ‘One Drop’, is not really a journalist, but merely practicing to be a writer that he is not.

Yet, he parades the streets boasting that he attended one of the most renowned journalism schools abroad, and attained a master’s degree plus a string of academic certificates. Rather ironically, he refers to himself as one of the best journalists in the country.

Despite his self-implied rating as one of the best journalists in the country, Mohamed Sankoh is currently the subject of an unprofessional conduct i.e. unduly entering into people’s privacy.

In what has been widely dubbed as phonographic, Mohamed Sankoh, as if he has lost his mind and is now living in a different world where decency and respect for basic ethics are shelved, had the audacity to state in one of his numerous boot-licking trashes presented as articles, that he spotted John Benjamin at the premises of Dr. Sylvia Blyden, with a white boxer or underwear on. I thought a red boxer would have interested him most, since he is ‘red’ to the core…always praise-singing the president even amidst grave blunders.

Be that as it may, Mohamed Sankoh, a so-called professional journalist, ought to know better and therefore supposed not to have gone that low. My candid opinion is that something strange has entered into his brain, and has therefore become an outcast insofar as etiquette is concerned.

To put it more clearly, Mohamed Sankoh, by his very act of disrespect to somebody that is ten times his worth, just as Dr. Sylvia Blyden is, has provoked a situation he cannot control. He has brought into the picture no less a person than His Excellency President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, whose underwear has come under the spotlight for the first time since he assumed that prestigious position.

While I don’t normally take lightly to leaders being caricatured or insulted, I also on the same token don’t take lightly to ordinary people being subjected to undue ridicule. One thing I know for sure is that Mohamed Sankoh would have saved the president’s underwear had he behaved professionally and not touched someone else’s.   

Putting the presidency aside, both Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma and Mr. John Benjamin bear the same status as chair of their respective political parties i.e. the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) and the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). You can either go in for one or none, because you just can’t fall for both. I am in for none.    

In the case of Mohamed Sankoh, his mind is settled for President Koroma, as evident by his writings. Nothing is wrong about that as a matter of choice and as a matter of fact. What perhaps is utterly wrong is his cheap approach towards expressing his support.

There is an old adage that says “You cannot honour your father at the expense of another man’s father”. Better still, “The respect you show to another man’s father is the same that will filter down to your own father”. Mind you, other examples apply.

The point I am trying to emphasize is that by behaving childishly when you ought not, the repercussion could be quite unimaginable. That’s precisely the mud into which Mohamed Sankoh has thrown himself.

Rather than being celebrated as indeed one of the most qualified and professional journalists in town, he has suddenly become a burden to the profession and society.

Paraphrasing the words of the President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) Alhaji Umaru Fofana, ‘such a blatant displayal of ‘unprofessionalism’ by so-called senior journalists has the potential of igniting bloody conflicts’. It’s genocidal to say the least.

The Independent Media Commission (IMC), though toothless and somehow biased, is much disturbed by what it deems as a downward trend in journalism principally perpetuated by a misfit calling himself Mohamed Sankoh.

I am taking on this matter on both personal and national grounds. Personally, I think Mohamed Sankoh insulted me the last time when he ‘mis-stated’ that he is of a better stuff than my humble self…all because he has an almighty Master’s Degree that he cannot defend based on his sheer unprofessional conduct.

On the national front, I fear that the likes of Mohamed Sankoh, if not checked, will undermine the peace we are currently enjoying as a nation. Maybe he should have spoken about the underwear of his parents (with due respect to them).

I hang my case!!!