Work
- New York, New York
- Freetown, Sierra Leone
Education
- Freetown, Sierra Leone
Current City and Hometown
Somerset, New JerseyCurrent city
Freetown, Sierra LeoneHometown
About Cocorioko
- COCORIOKO has a very rich history . It was first published at Fourah Bay College , the University of Sierra Leone , in 1973 during the era of the first revolutionary students union government led by Boubaccar Njai-Bah . It was set up by Leeroy Wilfred Kabs Kanu, who was the Minister of Propaganda in the students government , to serve as the mouthpiece of the students union , then involved in a battle of wits and supremacy with the archaic college administration and the political powers downtown. With Kabs-Kanu , as Publisher , the Editor-In-Chief then was a Nigerian student , Ben Ikeakor. Other members of the editorial board then were student activists Florence Iscandri, Millicent Macauley, Mohamed Lamin, Anthony Brewah , Princetta Godwin, Joan Mundoma , Jaiah Kallon etc. The paper covered hard and entertainment news on campus as well as explaining the goals and aspirations of the revolutionary students council government . The main aim of the government was to effect changes in the welfare of students on campus. It was that government that set the stage for the student revolution in 1977 headed by Hindolo Trye . The massive students action against the lethargic political powers forced the government to make wholesale reforms in governance and a snap General Elections that brought intellectuals into the national government for the first time . The newspaper folded up in 1976 when the main publishers graduated from college.
COCORIOKO was revived in 2002 by Leeroy Wilfred Kabs-Kanu to serve as a vanguard for credible , accurate , authoritative and reliable news and analyses from Sierra Leone . Cocorioko , in just a few years after being revived , is today one of the Sierra Leone’s biggest and most widely read newspapers , with an emphasis on rebranding Sierra Leone, a nation suffering from an image hangover , occasioned by decades of misgovernment, misrule , rampant corruption and a devastating war that killled over 200,000 people , left a colony of amputated and deformed citizens and destroyed the country’s infrastructure.
Cocorioko played a leading role in helping to effect regime change in Sierra Leone in 2007, through democratic Presidential and Legislative Elections that floored the inefficient and corrupt government of former President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and ushered in the government of President Ernest Bai Koroma , that inherited monumental socio-economic and political problems but is working diligently to help change the face of the nation for the better.
Cocorioko is also an award winning newspaper. In 2005, the New York Chapter of the oldest political party in Sierra Leone, the Sierra Leone People’s Party ( SLPP ) gave Cocorioko an award for outstanding journalism and community service. In 2008, Cocorioko won the prestigious NOSLINA Award for excellent community service . NOSLINA is the National Organization of Sierra Leoneans in North America . It is composed of the country’s leading intellectuals –an umbrella organization for Sierra Leonean oorganizations in the U.S .and the NOSLINA Award is the Sierra Leonean equivalence of the OSCAR.
Our modus operandi is not only to supply readers interesting and reliable news and features but to help rebrand Sierra Leone, an exercise we consider very important if the post-war nation should make any headway in attracting foreign investors , donor and development partners and tourists ,which would help rebuild the shattered country. Sierra Leone is mired in desperate socio-economic and political challenges at the moment and masive foreign investment and donor support are direly needed to bring relief to our people , restore social services and rebuild the infrastructure destroyed by the war. We want to appeal to all patriotic Sierra Leone and devoted friends of Sierra Leone to throw in their lot to help rebrand and rebuild the country. The negative perceptions about Sierra Leone being peddled by unpatriotic citizens and foreign commentators are inimical to the socio-economic and political recovery of the country. If Sierra Leone must rise again and take her rightful place in the comity of progressive nations, we all have to, as a matter of patriotic duty, help to project a more favourable perception of the Country. There is no doubt that Sierra Leone is a very beautiful country, a tourist’s delight , and a veritable paradise laden with abundantly rich mineral, material and human resources. All the country needs are faithful development partners to help us harness these rich resources at our disposal and a government committed to the development of the country and alleviation of the suffering of the masses. Hopefully, as the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon , noticed when he visited Sierra Leone, the country is making tremendous progress and in the words of the UN Chief , Sierra leone provides optimism that there is hope for Africa.
The Publisher and CEO of the newspaper, Rev. Leeroy Wilfred Kabs -Kanu, is a man with a wide professional experience in life. He has studied English , History and Sociology , journalism, Law , Educational Psychology and Special Education . He started his journalism career as a student at Christ The King’s College ( CKC), an elitist secondary school in Bo, Sierra Leone, where he rose to become Editor of the CKC TIMES in the late 1960s. At FBC in the early to mid-1970s , apart from being Publisher of Cocorioko, he was also Editor of SPOTLIGHT after the founder , Reginald Pobee, graduated from college; He has taught in Sierra Leone , Liberia and the United States and was at one time Principal of the United Muslim Association Secondary School in Freetown, Sierra Leone and an Educational Psychology Lecturer at the World Bank -sponsored Ministry of Education/University of Liberia /Kakata Rural Teacher Training Institute In-Service Teachers Training Program. He was also a features editor of Sierra Leone’s most radical newspaper , THE TABLET (now defunct ) , published by Pios Foray and Hindolo Trye in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He also worked as the Monrovia-based sports correspondent of WE YONE newspaper in 1978-79. He has also served as the New Jersey Bureau Chief of the WEST AFRICAN JOURNAL , then published in the U.S. by Joe S. Kappia and the U.S. Bureau Chief of the also defunct EXPO TIMES newspaper. He is presently a diplomat, serving as Sierra Leone’s Minister Plenipotentiary to the United Nations in New York. At the UN, He is also Coordinator of C-10 ( The Committee of 10 African nations tasked with negotiating the UN Security Council Reforms on behalf Africa ) and also Coordinator of the Sierra Leone Government media in the U.S.
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