By State House Communications Unit
Sierra Leone’s President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma and family spent this year’s Christmas celebrations mingling with the people of Port Loko district. Every year, President Koroma and family would spend their Christmas holiday in Makeni, the city of his birth. But this time round, he decided to grace the people of Port Loko with his presence.
The president’s convoy left Freetown on Tuesday 24th December for Port Loko through Lungi, Lokomasama and Port Loko town.
President Koroma, first lady Sia Nyama, daughters Alice and Dankay, and a coterie of Presidential staffers arrived in Port Loko town where they were greeted with dancing and drumming characteristic of yuletide celebrations.
Onlookers lined up along the road to catch a glimpse of the president’s convoy en route to the Presidential Lodge in Port Loko. Everywhere he went there was dancing and singing among the womenfolk and youth, singing the praises of the president who, according to them, has done so much for their district in so short a time.
At the Port Loko show field, where we gathered for a meeting chaired by Hon. Alhaji Alpha Kanu, Minister of Information and Communication, speaker after speaker profusely thanked the president for a job well done. They heaped praises on President Koroma for kick starting the transformation of their district through roads construction and infrastructural development, including the installation of solar street lights as is evident in Lungi, Lunsar, and Port Loko town itself.
On December 25th, President Koroma and family attended the Christmas Day Service at the Wesleyan Church of Sierra Leone in Port Loko. The church service was followed by an inspection tour of the Bankasoka Dam; a hydro-electricity project that is expected to provide 2 megawatts of electricity to Port Loko town and its environs after completion in February 2015.
In the evening of Wednesday, President Koroma and family headed to Lunsar where they attended a fund raising dinner hosted by stakeholders of Port Loko district under the theme “Gratitude in Unity”.
On Thursday, he visited Mange, DKM chiefdom, Lunsar and Masiaka where he took the same message of law, order, discipline and hard work; prerequisites for sustainable development and transformation.
“Hard work, sincerity and commitment is what we all need to progress in life”, President Koroma said, and called on the people to seize the opportunities thrown up by the presence of direct foreign investment in their district. “We have lost too many opportunities as a country”, he stressed.
The first family and close aides including the press corps arrived safely in Freetown in the evening hours of Thursday 26th December, instant.
