FOCUS ON SIERRA LEONE: The Sunday edition. 7 November 2021.
Sierra Leone is a country of immense natural wealth but remains at the bottom ten of the poorest countries in the world and at the bottom of every human development index according to UN reports.
It is a nation of tribulations– it has gone through dictatorship, military coups, political executions, kidnapping and killing of girls for ritual sacrifices, Ebola virus, mudslides disaster and the two major fire incidents in March this year that cost so many lives of slum dwellers and the destruction of properties.
Observers believe that the past is worringly spilling into the present. But until the 5th November, the country has never seen large numbers of their people burnt alive on the streets. The fuel tanker that burst into an inferno was an exceptionally gruesome incident to watch on our television screens beamed accross the world. 100 people are reported dead on the scene, after a vehicle collided with the fuel tanker in central Freetown– killing 100 people and many more injured were taken to hospital.
The graphic charred burnt out bodies scattered on the street with the tanker still on blazing fire was traumatic and distressing to watch- a gruesome spectacle unprecedented in Sierra Leone.
How has this greate nation, inhabited by the most peaceful and beautiful people that have produced some of the britest people who have excelled in the world fallen as if the founding fathers of this country are unhappy in their graves.
Surely, men like Sir Milton Margai didn’t wish this for Sierra Leone. He was a selfless leader and appealed to the nation in his independence speech — ” to treat your fellow human being fairly”
The character and temperament of Sir Milton Margai was lost on Sierra Leone in the immediate post independent years after his untimely death.
Present day Sierra Leone has become an animal farm and a paradise for some of the most experienced thieves that sucks the nation’s wealth like leeches.
In her state banquet address in Freetown especially to the young people , Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11 gave a moving tribute to Sir Milton Margai in exactly these sentences.
” Sierra Leone can count herself truly fortunate that while gaining her independence has found a leader with experience and devoted to her people. “To you prime minister, more than to any other single person gave the credit to quickening political consciousness of Sierra Leone and uniting her people” ” Yours is a record of selfless service and singular achievement which will always stand as an inspiration to your country “
Sierra Leone had the first university in subsahara Africa in 1827. Students from all over West Africa like Nigeria ,Ghana who did not have universities came to study at Fourahbay college, which was affiliated to Durham university in North of England.
It was the first subsahara African country to have railway network and the first broadcasting station .
It’s once dubbed by the British colonialist as the Athen of Africa. But political and financial corruption have rendered the country to not only at the bottom of every human development index but it’s been officially declared by the UN as a country suffering from “significant hunger”
The two quotes below are from a Sierra Leonean born professor , Jimmy Kandeh, based in the US and the former British High commissioner to Sierra Leone, Peter Penfold. These statements are central to understanding why the country continues to languish and why it’s failed to live to its reputation as the Athen of Africa.
Professor Jimmy Kandeh “The state in Sierra Leone is an organized protection racket that favors and protects fraudsters and looters of the country’s resources. State offices are nothing more than rental havens working against the interests of ordinary citizens. COI is just another head fake that is reminiscent of NPRC COIs. One misdirection after another, no matter what it is called, attitudinal change or new direction, the state remains a racket that impoverishes our people and ransoms our futures.”
According to Peter Penfold ,the former British ambassador to the country who played a crucial role that ensured the safety of British citizens caught up in a violent military coup on 25 May 1997 and subsequently played a major role to restore constitutional order in Sierra Leone made this Charles Dickins mosaic analysis of Sierra Leone.
“Sierra Leone is one of the richest countries in the world, it’s also one of the poorest countries in the world.. ..only few people are responsible for the miseries of the people”
This remains the truth today And the irony is that the people don’t value the truth,which has become a national characters. Don’t tell the truth if you want to survive, is the mantra.
Sierra Leone is a dystopian society. The disparities in wealth and opportunities between the political class and the people are widening to a tipping point. People are dying of hunger and preventable illnesses because there is a perennial absence of social services and medical services across the country.
In 2019, I had to buy a bandage for the staff in the government hospital in Kenema, which is the third city, to dress up the wounds sustained in a road accident by a relative of mine. There was no bandage in the hospital.
Bo, which is the second largest city, didn’t have a single oxygen metre, which is a vital instrument in the treatment of COVID19. But know this, the government spent millions of dollars and purchased over 30 SUV jeeps for ministers to fight COVID19.
The idiocy of the perennial neglects by the political class in failing to build social services , good educational facilities, good roads,clean drinking water supply, electricity and medical services have remain unchallenged because they are subsisted by the high illiteracy rates, ignorance, generic privation and poverty in the country.
Hunger has driven majority of the people to primitive existence in Sierra Leone, who constantly worry about food to eat, sex and shelter to sleep in. Rousseu ,the French philoshpher whose writings characterised a primitive society may not even have hard of sierra Leone, but this over 2 centuries statement is sadly apt to modern day Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leoneans don’t complain or protest about their socioeconomic conditions to the government; they don’t protest about electricity; they don’t complain or protest about the poor social and medical facilities; they don’t protest about the mass unemployment; nor do they protest about corruption . But they would moan the whole day of being hungry and beg for money for them to buy a bag of rice
The political class exploit this sad situation as rice being the country’s staple food has become a major political campaign commodity in Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone is going nowhere as long as the status quo feel secured.
Real change, from my own prospective, will only come in Sierra Leone through the consciousness and collective desire of the suffering people to assert their democratic rights and demand the change they need to take their country back from the crooked political structure .
100 poor people dying in such horrific circumstances challenges our sense of fairness and decency.
There are better ways to managing the affairs of a country like Sierra Leone but greed and the rampant corruption perpetrated by evil men elected to power have always held the country back from national cohesion and development.
The victims of the explosion of the fuel tanker need help from the UK. The country hasn’t face with such major incident of this nature.
Many people sustained first degree burns and life charging injuries.
The country neither have the medical equipment or trained medics to deal with such high number of casualties of burns.
I would like to take this opportunity, as a dual citizens of my birth country of Sierra Leone and Britain to appeal to the British High commissioner in Sierra Leone to make an appeal for support to our government here in London to come to the aid of the victims of this monumental tragedy.
Sierra Leone lacks the expertise and medical facilities to handle burns of this magnitude, including the identification of the charred blackened bodies of the dead.
Yankuba G.Kai-Samba
Chelmsford UK
