Afsatu Kabba ready to fight back

By Abdul Hassan Fackie

The former Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Haja Afsatu Kabba, has said that recent media reports are nothing but a bunch of unfounded and baseless allegations meant only to create mischief and present her in a bad light.

She further stated these papers whose major aim was to blackmail her have failed woefully in their attempt as she has stoutly refused to cow to their threats.

In an interview with this paper she stated that the serialized publications by the Global Times which among others, alleged that on one occasion, she gave US$ 3,500 to the Editor of the Independent Observer Newspaper, Mr. Jonathan Leigh, for the construction of his newspaper’s website though, was not only untrue but highly libelous and full of hate.

She said the allegations that she handed the sum of US$3,500 to Miss Sylvia Olayinka Blyden, the Publisher of the Awareness Times Newspaper, for onward handing over to Mr. Jonathan Leigh, contradicts the basic principles of Journalistic practice of fairness and objectivity, because she was never interviewed to give her own side of the story.

She stressed that she wanted to inform the Managing Editor of the Global Times Newspaper, Mr. Sorie Fofanah, and the general public that at no time has she given US$ 3,500 or any amount of money for that matter to either Miss Sylvia Blyden or Mr. Jonathan Leigh as alleged by the Global Times.

She noted that she knows her rights as a Sierra Leonean and that she was going to exercise the right to redress by taking the matter to Court for what she described as libelous, defamatory, and vilifying allegations against her by the newspaper.

She stressed that she will no longer sit by and allow people to say libelous, vilifying and unfounded lies about her without fighting back

“And until Sorie Fofanah and his team of conspirators prove beyond doubt that I, Haja Afsatu Kabba, gave US$3,500 to Jonathan Leigh for the building of his newspaper’s website, no doubt, I shall have no option but to take him and his newspaper to Court and get redress,” she concluded.