9rivermedia

Just a few hours after a community fulfilled its obligation to bury those who died on the Wellington highway, politicians had already coopted the tragedy with promises they had no intention to keep.  Once all the flag-draped caskets were laid out, the victims (some still unknown) were interred at Waterloo, the same cemetery where Ebola victims and the 2017 mudslide victims were also laid rest, according to Freetown Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr. Anxious not to be painted as uncaring, politicians launched donation drives for survivors instead of stressing efforts to reduce road casualties, draw attention to the devastation caused by road crashes, and give recognition to the suffering of road crash victims and the work of support and rescue services. Before moving on to their suburbs, where neighbors don't plunder fuel tankers involved in road crashes or scavenge palm oil streaming from overturned trucks, politicians did remember to pose one last time for the mobile phones.  For peop...