Africa24 news
By Rashid Conteh, Masingbi descendant
Driving from Freetown highway to Kono, there is a beautiful school best described in Arabic as “Al madrasati jamila.’’
The school is built on a hill-top in Masingbi town, a hilly-fortified environ.
The school opens the town while coming from Freetown since it is among the few buildings you’ll first see on the highway.
But the school is not yet opened since built in the era of Koroma Ernest Bai, former president of Sierra Leone.
Just 40 feet steps walk from Ahmadiyya secondary school, you’ll get to the new school compound being constructed by Hon.Mabinty Fofanah.
The female, agile, smiling daughter of Pa Fofanah [ Pa Fornah, the locals would call him], Mabinty hails from a village called Ron’ghetor, in Tonkolili district, north of Sierra Leone.
She loves her people so much.
Her love and passion for her father navel-birth land, Konike chiefdom, Masingbi, was seen when she made a bitter choice in life – to be a politician or a London office worker.
The choice to staying in London or coming to serve her people of Konike was a tough one for her especially after seeing her father being mysteriously killed in a road accident years back.
Other passengers saved but Pa Fornah alone died in a vehicle that half crash along the highway to Masingbi from Freetown, which left many Konikees wondered over the circumstances leading to Pa Fornah’s sudden demise.
Hon.Mabinty had lived in London for many, many years and she is understood by many to have grown up there since her childhood days.
She went to school there and attended university overseas.
Despite she was working in London, she came home to contest for APC’s MP flagpost.
When a bad fortunes smiled at her father as he fatefully died in a road accident, Mabinty replaced Pa Fofonah to become an MP in a Konike constituency.
Madam Fofanah won in her constituency and served a two term limit in the well as MP representing her people.
Though she was evicted from having APC’s MP symbol in the preceding election, 2018, Hon. Mabinty had already made an incredible impact on the lives on her people of Konike chiefdom.
She built them a beautiful school in Masingbi town and had helped people of Konike chiefdom in many aspects of life.
There are some parents she helped paying their children’s fees in school; there are others, in private, she was giving money to solve their home needs.
The female honourable shines with sweet fame among her people as she is liked the most.
She is never hated like other politicians whom they are all in the APC party and others in SLPP.
Owing to her generosity shown to the people over the years and the people love for her as a servant politician, she is hated more but only by her enemies, Tonkolili bad politicians in APC.
The enemies hate her because she always pushes to develop her Constituency and beyond. They don’t hate her for a good reason but for a bad reason. And that is because she means good for her people.
The enemies wish the chiefdom down and down in ashes as they choose only to enrich themselves in politics. These are the bad politicians that don’t like to see young Mabinty.
Hon. Mabinty Fofanah had wanted to open a school she had built for the children in Konike but she was overpowered by her enemies.
The new school building, apparently, still lay there.
The female politician could have opened it long ago had she had had the support of elders of Masingbi to officially declare that school open for children’s use.
She could have opened it if she had served as MP in president Maada Bio’s first term in office, 2018-2023.
But now Honourable Mabinty has a better chance or opportunity to do so now since she has reclaimed the MP title as a new honourable who was voted by her people June 24, 2023 in Sierra Leone’s general elections.
President Maada Bio is a man of action and a passionate lover of education. You’ll surely get his support since it’s for the interests of the children and parents of this country you are having a talk with him for.
So Hon Mabinty can you please work with President Bio now to open that school on the highway. We need it. We want to see open that beautiful school. Al madrasati jamila fi Masingbi.