Some people have often tapped my back as a budding journalist who has a sensitive nose for locating prominent personalities in society. That compliment was showered on me after I had located both former and current ministers over the last thirteen months.

The trend continued with locating some of the aspirants contending for key positions in the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), including the positions of president, vice president and secretary general.

One thing I have observed over the years is that, journalists love to interview people but most of them - excluding me - hate to be interviewed by colleague journalists. I was shocked with trepidation when a colleague journalist who wanted to be at the helm of SLAJ affairs turned me down for an interview.

The immediate outgoing SLAJ Acting President Philip Neville had agreed to grant me an interview but all of a sudden, he declined to talk to me last Friday when I rang him up. Hear us: "Mr. Neville, do you want me to come over for the interview now?" I enquired. "Jalloh, I don't want any interview from you now. All I need from you is your vote," Mr. Neville replied.

"But I have booked an appointment with those you are contending against and I don't want to talk to them without talking to you," I insisted. "Jalloh, I have told you what I want from you. As I am talking to you, I am on my way to the provinces to campaign," Neville added. I then decided not to force him.

On my way to see another aspirant for an interview, I saw Mr. Neville in his black coloured V-Boot Mercedez Benz along Goderich Street in Central Freetown probably heading for the provinces. As I said earlier that I'm one of the journalists who never run away from interviews, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Awareness Times Newspaper, Ms. Sylvia Blyden, and the Editor-In-Chief of the New Jersey based online paper, Cocorioko, Kabbs Kanu, and many more can testify that I am always ready to grant interviews. When news of my appointment as Information Attaché to Saudi Arabia was announced whilst I was in the United States, Ms. Blyden from Freetown and Mr. Kanu from Sommerset, New Jersey, rang me up for interviews.

I indeed talked to them. I'm wondering why people who want to head public institutions always shy away from talking to the public.

Though not an innuendo to my long time friend, Philip Neville, we expect people running for public offices to always get themselves prepared to prove to the public that they worth their salt. By and large, all other aspirants running for the said key positions in SLAJ, including Ibrahim Karim Sei, Umaru Fofana, Theo Nicol - who is fighting his petition- Abdul Rahman Swarray, Jonathan Leigh, Mustapha Sesay and David Tam Baryoh, agreed to grant me interview before the elections on 29th November.

I must confess that the Director of C-Met and Citizen Radio F.M.103.7, David Tam Baryoh, who is a very senior journalist in this country and author of two books, really impressed me for being the first contestant I interviewed despite he was the last person I informed about the interview. Any way, read in my next issue an exclusive interview with Abdul Rahman Swarray running for the second position in SLAJ. Below are excerpts of my interview with David Tam-Baryoh:

Alhaji Jalloh (AJ) -Mr. Tam Baryoh, your late declaration to contest for the Secretary General position during the SLAJ elections slated for 29th November comes as a surprise to many journalist colleagues, especially after one or two colleagues had long declared their intentions to run for the same office. What are your chances of winning the elections?

David Tam Baryoh - (DTB) I am going to win. I am winning because I am the better of the two candidates. I have the educational and professional background it takes to lead our Association in these trying times. My opponent knows he has no chance. My declaration was a surprise to many of my colleagues as they expected me to go for the presidency. Only for me going in for the secretary generalship, our Association could have fallen into bad and wealth-seeking hands that have come into SLAJ to chop project funds.

You've already presented your dream team and you have appealed to colleagues to vote for the team members for the respective executive positions. Don't you think your bias will militate against your chances of winning over colleagues who are opposed to your choices?

I am indeed the brain behind the dream team and I have no regrets. You see, over the last six months, some of the SLAJ executive members, especially the holy alliance between Mr. Ibrahim Karim Sei and Mustapha Sesay; have been very unfair to the rest of SLAJ membership. These two created SLAJ within SLAJ. They were running workshops and taking decisions without the consent and approval of the rest of the remaining executive. The Vice President, Mr. Philip Neville, was marginalized. To defeat 'clanism' and selfish introspection they had instituted in SLAJ, we must disband that clique of theirs. So my dream team is a proactive team that will stop Karim Sei and Mustapha Sesay from taking SLAJ to the gallows. And to finally forestall their veil plans for SLAJ, I have presented a team for the consideration of the rest of the serious section of SLAJ...that serious section, to which Mr. Karim Sei and Mustapha Sesay do not belong.

You were Secretary General of SLAJ in 1997 before resigning for another engagement elsewhere in the sub-region. Why are you going for the same position instead of the Presidency? Don't you think you should have done what the immediate past Secretary General - Ibrahim Karim Sei has done, running for the presidency after two terms as SLAJ scribe?

I asked Mr. Philip Neville to contest for the presidency, so how can I contest against my own candidate? I did not want to contest for the secretary generalship until I discovered that Mustapha Sesay, the wrong candidate as that, was almost going to win un-opposed. I am in this race to rescue SLAJ Secretariat from Mustapha's unprofessional and ill advised grip. I resigned in 1997 because there is no room for dead democrats. I needed to excuse the AFRC so as to be useful to the greater society of Sierra Leone today, not just journalism. Which journalist in my position in 1997, under the AFRC would not have done what I did? Namely; leaving the stage for machete-wielding killers for nine months!

What were your achievements as Secretary General, though you served for a limited period?

During my short stay in office before the AFRC forced me out of the country, I put $21,000 into the pockets of some 133 Sierra Leonean journalists. I was a fore-runner in the fight to achieve the Independent Media Commission Bill. President Kabbah was just about to sign the bad Press Bill, and Olu Gordon, Frank Kposowa and I were helpful in forestalling that signing until AFRC struck. During the war, I was correspondent to Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) and I highlighted the ills committed against fellow journalists. My less than six months in office was traumatic courtesy of the excruciating suffering journalists went through during the rebel war.

Many people say the Harry Yansanneh case is no longer pursued like before. If elected, do you intend to collaborate with the Association to pursue it?

No. That case is being pursued. It's only the Attorney General's office that's delaying us. You know politicians. It will be pursued with much vigor with me as Secretary General and Philip Neville as head of our Association.

As a senior journalist, what do you know about the ongoing case between SLAJ and the Government of Sierra Leone over the 1965 Public Order Act (POA)? Is it dying like the Harry Yansanneh case?

If my colleagues had followed my advice at the Bo SLAJ convention, we would have been far gone with the case of the 1965 POA, now in the Supreme Court. I advised that we push President Ernest Bai Koroma, to make good his election promise to the Sierra Leonean journalists. I advised that we as SLAJ can only ask the first gentleman of the state to do just what he said he would do, namely; to help Parliament to remove certain sections of the POA, with special reference to Section 33. But the greater majority at that Bo convention voted for court action. Now see where we are. When you ask President Koroma now to help fulfill his promise, he will say, like President Tejan Kabbah used to say when we asked him to drop the Paul Kamara case, I AM CONSTRAINED. The case is in court and I don't want to be accused of meddling into judicial matters. However, when we take over, come first week in December, I will advocate a new approach which I am not at liberty now to discuss.

Some say your untimely resignation as Secretary General of SLAJ would have been viewed by many journalist colleagues as a move for personal gains. What's your take on that?

Well, if you call trying to save my life from AFRC killing threats as personal gains then you are right. Some played the foolhardy, and today they either have the physical scars or are dead. I am a living democrat, not a dead one. I resigned, ran away from Freetown to Guinea and Ghana, then to Canada and finally to the United States. After the murderous AFRC were removed from power, like the rest of men such as Tejan Kabbah, we came back. And here we are talking about democracy. Would you challenge brainless gun carrying youths who had no value for life? Three months into the AFRC madness, I excused Freetown.

You said the Association needs restructuring for a better SLAJ and that you have the time, quality and energy to do just that. Are you inferring that the present SLAJ is not well positioned to meet the present day challenges, or deficient in human resource of better quality?

Yes. I am saying that my chief opponent Mr. Mustapha Sesay destroyed SLAJ Secretariat because he went into a secret and unhealthy arrangement with the then substantive Secretary General, Karim Sei. The two ran down the Secretariat and made no attempt to move the Secretariat from den of brothels at its present place. I paid the first Le 6m rent for the first two years but now I can't pay for that same location. Our first task will be to move the office from that location, or else I will never go there. That office and location must not be seen as ideal office space and location for journalists.

Why do you think Philip Neville is the most suitable candidate of all those contesting the SLAJ presidency?

Because I have had enough time so far to assess Mr. Philip Neville. He is not tribalistic. He belongs to no faction, political or cultic. Those who don't like him are the ones who have problem. He does not brood over their hate. He is forward looking. He is a genuine media investor and highly educated like me.

Philip Neville does not always have to agree with what others think and suggest, but he is a good team player. He is neither a saint nor the worse journalist in town. I cannot say same of the other contenders. I have seen his certificates, his awards and all his degree papers show he is hard working too.

Others shroud their assumed brilliance in fake humility and paper-lacking emotions that lack institutional proofs. I do not have patience for such. So looking at the candidates, Philip Neville is trillion successes ahead. I am a winner myself. I do not have room for failures and unfulfilled trials so I see myself in a man who is pushful, helpful to others and above all, ready to take risks while serving humanity. Journalism is not a job that must endear you to everyone. Philip is the journalist's leader. If he begins to show signs of failure, I will say so, but for now, I care less actually whatever some of his detractors may think. I have met people who are not even journalists saying I should have contested because they think for them, Philip is too troublesome for their comfort. But the question is: whoever likes a good journalist anyway? He is going to win because he is the best, which is just the truth. And the way both of us have raised the stake of gunning in for SLAJ leadership, any time some one wants to contest a position, much so president and secretary general, in the future, you would have to think twice.

What about the other members of your dream team, such as Theo Nicol for Vice President, Madam Hawa Tucker for Organizing Secretary, Madam Mariama Sesay for Financial Secretary, Mr. Edward Marah for Publicity Secretary and Mr. John Masuba for Assistant Secretary General?

If you watch the team, you might be able to realize that it is a blend of contemporaries, junior and hard working female journalists and people we might want to expose to leadership. Some of us have been around for awhile when it comes to union politics. This team is as a result of hard look, and curious scrutiny. They are all capable and have team spirit to work. Not that sort of disorganized sort that had been handling the affairs of the union over the last six months. That group that was headed by Mr. Karim Sei and Mustapha Sesay should not be replicated. Not just too soon. After I let the team out, some guys tried to infuse national party politics into our union friendly contests. They took the tricks to Kenema, Makeni and Bo. After I paid a few hours visit to those places, I defused the whole nonsense idea. Our colleagues in the provinces are much more intelligent than that so they saw the danger and just even hated the schemers more.

Mr. Baryoh, most journalism professionals don't treat SLAJ with the seriousness it deserves because media owners have subjected them to many indignity and hardship as a result of poor or non-payment of salaries, and the Association does nothing to look into their plight, what is your opinion on this issue and how will you address it if you are elected Secretary General of SLAJ for the second time?

Well you see, that is why I say we must give the leadership of SLAJ to media owners and operators to search themselves and advance solutions for such problems. All the other contenders for the presidency and secretary generalship do not own and operate any serious local media so they do not understand the complex constraints and likeable solutions. Because of the IMC restrictions on cross ownership of media, I cannot tell you how many newspapers I am related to financially and business wise. I am a media man and so my business is media business. Some of the other contenders are exuberant novices in this wide field meant for educated professionals. If only the teenage section of our voter register will realize and distinguish between school-boy media exuberance and journalistic and educated maturity, and vote for Philip Neville, they will see positive results.

What pre-election pledges do you have to make so that you'll be judged by those promises if you are elected.

I want to create a data base for all journalists in Sierra Leone and would like that office or secretariat to be run as a professional business office in a better location. After just that, you watch my move!

When did you join SLAJ?

I began practicing in October of 1991 and joined SLAJ in 1992, after the NPRC coup. The records are there. Just after I began working for the Pool Newspaper in October of 1991, NPRC assigned caretaker persons to run SLAJ, can you imagine? That was when some of us started seeing anomalies in the government-SLAJ relationship. So when it comes to SLAJ, some of us have been shouting for a little longer now.

Have you been an active member since you joined the Association?

Yes, even becoming its Secretary General in 1996 until I left the country in 1997.

Who's the past President you admire most in terms of achievements and what were those achievements?

Ibrahim Ben Kargbo raised the profile of SLAJ but Frank Kposowa fought better for press freedom and he still continues to do so even while in Parliament.

Other SLAJ presidents and senior members took delight in flying. For me, these days I don't even want to leave Freetown, though I will be leaving for Athens soon after the elections. Because of limited resources, even traveling among SLAJ executive members causes trouble. So, some of us in the executive will be watching just that.

Do you foresee any political interference into the SLAJ elections?

You see, sometimes, journalists accuse politicians of meddling into union politics. But over the last few weeks, I sensed that it was rather some of our guys who have been fighting tooth and nail to involve not just politicians but failed politicians. Some politicians who have been with the I.B. Kargbo SLAJ executive think they can now install their own puppets in SLAJ executive. Not when some of us are alive. Any politician who thinks that SLAJ executive can determine national votes at national political party elections is a stupid politician who does not know the media landscape well. It is respected individual media houses and respected journalists who can determine votes, NOT SLAJ executive. So to attempt to implant political stooges at SLAJ executive is a misnomer. SLAJ as an executive cannot and will never support any political party; while on the other hand, a single and respected journalist who might want to end his career and jump on the political train could do so and go. So the quest and ill advise intentions for even some colleagues to support individual journalist-contenders for these SLAJ elections on national and tribal political lines are misinformed and do not seem to read the society well.

What's your final appeal to journalist colleagues as the elections fast approach?

That journalists vote the best candidates and that their choice is devoid of tribal, regional and imbued jealousy. Lastly, I will like to appeal to fellow journalists to understand that we as journalists can earn respect through our professional and unbiased work, but must never think that every member of the public is going to like you. Usually, popular journalists are the bad journalists, because they want to please the rotten section of society. When you attempt to show the holes in the fences, they will paint you bad. That does not make you bad!