Sierra Leone gained independence from Britain on 27 April 1961. The golden jubilee of that glorious day is this April. It has been an eventful 50 years, and as the nation celebrates, New African devotes this special commemorative report in honour of the people. Prepared by Edward Kargbo.

Like many African leaders at independence, Sir Milton Margai, Sierra Leone’s first prime minister, knew what was coming. He saw the urgent need for national cohesion after the deep divisions that had marred the run-up to independence.

There had been tensions between the “countrymen” (people from the inland “protectorate”) and the Krios in the Western Area who had had a better relationship with the colonial administration, probably because of their education and adopted European lifestyle.

The taste and smell of politics during the run-up to the “independence conference” at Lancaster House in London (known locally as the Constitutional Talks) became unpleasant as rivalry among various political parties and interests became blatantly spiteful. But the time for independence had come. The British were ready to go and nothing could prevent the green, white and blue flag of the new Sierra Leone from replacing the Union Jack.

When Sir Milton led the nation, which was once called Romarong by the indigenous Mende people to independence on 27 April 1961, he was keen on reunifying the people.

He was a man who did not know tribe or region. A medical doctor, he had worked in different parts of the country, made good friends, and gained the admiration of the people and their British colonisers. Sir Milton wanted to see a nation that was strongly united.

In his independence message on 27 April 1961, he made this clarion call to the people: “I ask you to deal fairly and honestly with your fellow men, to discourage lawlessness, and to strive actively for peace, friendship, and unity in our country.”

Sir Milton’s message sounded more like a priest’s homily to a congregation on a Sunday morning. For him, being a leader at that point in time was more than just holding the country’s highest office. He believed that the basic life principles of “honesty” and “fairness” in human relations were crucial to the growth of the nation.

At sixty-six at the time, Sir Milton knew and acknowledged that independence could not bring “sudden change”. What was important was the fact that the people were “now in complete control of [their] destiny”.

Unfortunately, the polite and conciliatory Sir Milton did not live long enough to actualise his dreams of making the country a place to be proud of. He died in 1964 – barely three years into his reign. It was then that his younger brother, Sir Albert Margai, controversially took over as premier and succeeded in trashing Sir Milton’s dreams of a united and development-driven Sierra Leone.

According to several accounts of history, the young Margai exuberantly turned everything upside down firing some influential members of his elder brother’s government; and creating ethnic and regional divisions, in the process causing the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) to lose popularity.

These ugly developments subsequently cost the SLPP the tightly contested 1967 elections. The SLPP’s loss gave way to the opposition politician, Siaka Stevens, of the All People’s Congress (APC) gaining power. But the joy of presiding over the first peaceful transfer of political power in Africa from ruling party to the opposition was thwarted within hours, when the Royal Sierra Leone Military Forces under Brigadier David Lansana [loyal to Sir Albert] staged the country’s first coup d’état.

However, within 24 hours, senior military officers divested Brigadier Lansana of his command of the army and later instituted the National Reformation Council (NRC). It took another 13 months and another coup d’état, this time staged by noncommissioned officers, before Siaka Stevens could regain the premiership.

Stevens’ APC, to whom Sierra Leoneans turned for succour after Sir Albert’s disappointing leadership, unleashed what some have called “a reign of terror” and hardship on the people – the very same people that Sir Milton had admonished to be loyal, honest and fair.

Since then, the country has come a long way – through a series of coups and a bloody rebel war. It has been an eventful 50 years for a country that is abundantly endowed with natural resources (diamonds being the chief endowment), and yet remains poor.

Sierra Leone’s 11-year rebel war (1991-2002), occasioned by bad governance and selfishness, has had a heavy toll on the already poor infrastructure and economy.

Eight years after the devastating conflict, the government of President Ernest Bai Koroma is still faced with serious challenges: reconstruction, unity, fairness and honesty – the same things that Sir Milton preached at independence. Divisive politics based on ethnicity and regionalism is perhaps the newest and toughest challenge facing Sierra Leone today.

Politics and elections have become a serious source of tension and division along regional and ethnic lines.

From the opposition viewpoint, the Koroma government’s “discrimination” against the people from the south-east of the country is too blatant. This is certainly a claim of bias that the APC has refuted numerous times. The government argues that the president’s appointment of prominent opposition politicians from the SLPP and other south-easterners from the People’s Movement for Democratic Change (a breakaway party formed by Charles Margai, son of Sir Albert) should be enough reason not to believe the opposition’s ethnicity and regionalism claims.

The geography

Sierra Leone is located in the heavy rainforest region of West Africa. With an estimated population of 6.5 million, it covers a total area of 27,699 square miles. It is a constitutional republic which is made up of three provinces and a Western Area subdivided into 14 districts.

It is one of those countries with a very colourful history. Long before any Briton knew where the “colony” was, the indigenous Mende people called their country Romarong. In fact, archaeological finds show that the territory that became modern Sierra Leone had been inhabited continuously for at least 2,500 years by Africans who moved there from other parts of the continent. The earliest inhabitants included the Sherbro, Temne and later the Mende, and the Kono who settled in the east of the country.

European contacts with Sierra Leone started with the Portuguese.

In 1462, the Portuguese explorer, Pedro da Cintra, mapped the hills surrounding what is now Freetown Harbour, and named the shaped formation Serra de Leão (the Portuguese words for Lion Mountains).

In the Italian tongue, Serra de Leão becomes Sierra Leone, which eventually became the country’s name. Pedro da Cintra’s travels paved the way for Portuguese traders to arrive at Freetown Harbour, and 33 years later a Portuguese fort was built there in 1495 to act as a trading post. With time, the Portuguese were joined by the Dutch and French; all of them using Sierra Leone as a trading point for slaves.

Britain, the eventual colonial ruler of Sierra Leone, was a latecomer to the area. British contacts came indirectly via the slave trade when in 1562 Sir John Hawkins shipped 300 African slaves acquired “by the sword and partly by other means”, to the British colonies in America.

In 1787, English traders founded a settlement in Sierra Leone, naming it the “Province of Freedom”, which became the home of freed African slaves from America. In March 1792, through the influence of Thomas Peters, the Sierra Leone Company was established to relocate 1,196 black Americans who had escaped enslavement by seeking protection with the British Army during the American Revolution.

Sixteen years later, Britain took over from the Sierra Leone Company when Freetown became a British “crown colony” in 1808.

Almost 90 years would pass before the interior of the country became a British “protectorate” in 1896. At independence in 1961, the “crown colony” and the “protectorate” became a united country.

Before independence, because the country was divided into a “colony” and a “protectorate”, with separate and different political systems constitutionally defined for each, antagonism escalated to a heated debate between the two entities in 1947, when proposals were introduced to provide for a single political system for both the colony and the protectorate. “Most of the proposals,” according to historical accounts, “came from the protectorate. The Krios (or descendants of the freed slaves from America and elsewhere), led by Isaac Wallace-Johnson, opposed the proposals, the main effect of which would have been to diminish their political power.

“It was due to the astute politics of Sir Milton Margai, who was the son of a Krio man by the name of Tu-borku Metzeger, that the educated protectorate elite was won over to join forces with the paramount chiefs in the face of Krio intransigence. Later, Sir Milton (whose real family name was Tu-borku Metzeger) used the same skills to win over opposition leaders and moderate Krio elements for the achievement of independence.”

In November 1951, Sir Milton supervised the drafting of a new constitution, which united the colony and protectorate legislatures and provided a framework for independence. Two years later (in 1953), the country was given local ministerial powers, and Sir Milton was elected “chief minister” of Sierra Leone under a parliamentary system.

The country held its first parliamentary election in May 1957 which was won by the SLPP, the most popular party at the time. Sir Milton was re-elected as chief minister by a landslide.

As the clamour for independence increased in 1960, Sir Milton led a delegation to a constitutional conference in London. The colonial secretary Iain Macleod represented the British government at the talks. All the members of the Sierra Leonean delegation were prominent and wellrespected politicians, including Sir Milton’s younger brother Sir Albert Margai, John Kareefa-Smart, Hector Boltman, Lamina Sankoh, Banja Tejan-Sie, Ella Koblo Gulama, Amadu Wurie, Mohamed Sanusi Mustapha and Eustace H. Taylor Cummings.

Notable absentees from the delegation were Siaka Stevens, the leader of the opposition APC, and the veteran Krio politician Isaac Wallace-Johnson, who were placed under house arrest in Freetown, charged with disrupting the independence movement.

When Britain’s West African empire expanded (to include Ghana, Nigeria, and Gambia), Sierra Leone became the educational centre of British West Africa. Fourah Bay College was established in Freetown in 1827 to act as a magnet for English-speaking West Africans. For more than 100 years, Fourah Bay was the only Europeanstyle university in that part of Africa.

But not everybody was happy under British rule. Some of the indigenous people mounted several unsuccessful revolts against the British, the most notable was the “Hut Tax War” in 1898. The legendary Bai Bureh led the “northern front” of the Hut Tax War, with his fighters giving the betterarmed British forces a run for their money for several months. Hundreds of British troops and Bureh’s fighters were subsequently killed.

Finally, Bai Bureh himself was captured on 11 November 1898 and sent into exile in what is now Ghana, while 96 of his colleagues were hanged by the British. The Hut Tax War then saw the end of large-scale organised resistance to colonialism, but resistance continued throughout the British rule of the country.

In 1935, the British granted a mineral mining monopoly to the South African-based diamond conglomerate, De Beers, via its subsidiary, the Sierra Leone Selection Trust, which was planned to last 98 years.

Sierra Leone is rich in minerals; it has some of the rarest and most valuable mineral types in the world.

The economy is built around mining, with diamonds at the top of the pile.

The country is among the top 10 diamond producers in the world.

There are also large deposits of titanium, bauxite, gold and rutile.

Home to sixteen ethnic groups (the two largest being Mende and Temne), Sierra Leone is a predominantly Muslim nation, though with a significant Christian minority.

Next year will be an interesting year in Sierra Leone as three national elections will be held: presidential, legislative, and local government. It is no secret that the polls are going to be hotly contested, with the APC keen on consolidating its hold on power, while the SLPP will do everything to unseat the APC.

No-one foresees a return to the 1993-2004 conflict; the country has gone past that stage. But if the conduct and outcomes of recent by-elections are anything to go by, then tough times lie ahead.

But that will be for next year. For now, it is time for celebrations. Fifty years in the life of a nation is a big deal. Sierra Leone may not have made the most of the past 50 years. But despite the ups and downs, the country is still together as one – united and now at peace with itself! That alone calls for celebration. Happy Birthday Sierra Leone!