From Cairo to Cape Town there is no let-up to the plight of Africans: poverty, illiteracy, political instability and social chaos. This bleak situation has prompted many people to ask why we find ourselves in such a mess. We need individual and collective therapy. We need to work on any cultural defects through our educational system and communication networks. I think even creating awareness will have an enormous psychological impact on many of us.
I think, we in Sierra Leone should look at, learn from our past and present mistakes, and plan for a future that encourages social justice and growth for the benefit of all of us. Let us bear in mind that Real peace is not the absence of conflicts but rather the presence of social justice. Justice is the glue that holds society together.
That leads me to the fundamental question: What causes the persistent state of decadence or binges in Sierra Leone since independence?
Sierra Leone’s immediate post-colonial history was characterised by the presence of peace, respect for fundamental human rights, good governance, a robust judicial system and democratic traditions and institutions. In other words, at independence Britain bequeathed to us institutions, traditions and structures on which we should have built an economically prosperous nation and a just and contended society. In microeconomic terms, Sierra Leone was ahead of Malaysia and Singapore. Yet, today our country is rated one of the poorest in the world.
Sierra Leone is a small country (just about the size of Bayern) abounding in mineral and natural resources. At independence, our public service was comparable to the best on the west coast of Africa with a surfeit of trained and experienced work force. The society was homogenous and there was no marked evidence of religious or tribal divide. The country had a thriving private sector with a large number of well-established foreign firms. These foreign firms did not only maintain a certain minimum level of managerial efficiency and business probity based on standards prescribed by their parent overseas companies, but also, the fallout of their competitiveness among themselves benefited the local population generally.
To increase such benefits, independent Sierra Leone only needed to adopt appropriate national policies to enable these entities to continue to function alongside local emerging entrepreneurship. Why did we not develop appropriate policies in order to build on the acquired institutions, traditions and structures? What went wrong? This is how I will put it into perspective.
The post-independence elections in Sierra Leone inflamed and exaggerated the differences between tribes and were contested more or less on tribal lines. For the first time in Sierra Leone, a person’s political affiliation came to be determined by his tribe and vice versa. The politicians exploited these differences, which, before then, did not matter. The consequence of this was that the result of those elections was more or less inconclusive, having regard to the delicate balance between tribes.
The worst consequence of tribalising politics was that it gave rise to the first experience of military intervention in polities, which was reversed only a year later. However, in spite of the reversal, the two evils that have since then beset the national politics of Sierra Leone and from which all other evils emanated, namely, TRIBALISM and MILITARY COUPS were already firmly rooted and continued ever since to plaque the sierra Leone political and social atmosphere.
To elaborate a little further; on March 21st 1967, Brigadier David Lansana, the then army commander with the help of Hinga Norman, the then aide-de-camp to the representative of queen Elizabeth in Freetown, executed the first military coup in sierra Leone by overthrowing the APC government that defeated the ruling the SLPP party in the 1967 general election. It was the first time in independent Africa that the party in power had lost to the opposition. The military demonstrated their tribal and party loyalty to the ruling SLPP party by staging the first coup in Sierra Leone and thus effectively terminating the democratic process. Mr. Stevens, leader of the APC, and his supporters went into exile in Conakry and it was until a year later, after another military coup that they returned to Freetown, with Mr. Stevens taking up his position as prime minister. The coup was organised by MR. Stevens’s staunch tribal ally. In order to consolidate their grip on power, the ruling APC party for the subsequent decades continued and intensified the system of tribilising the military, the police, the judiciary as well as public services. The patronage system or clientelism was well developed and perfected and established nationwide. In this system, the best qualification one could possess in order to get a job or even to survive was “the unquestionable loyalty and allegiance to the ruling APC party. The more APC you were the more chances you had to get a scholarship to study abroad or to get an employment. The social darwinistic theory characterised by " survival of the fittest" became synonymous with "survival of the APC" in the then existing political jungle. The military, the police, government ministries, public services, private sectors, schools, university colleges, to name but a few , were all infiltrated by the system of political patronage and tribalism. This system of political mismanagement and economic disenfranchisement, which marginalised and robbed 90% of the population, finally met its waterloo in 1992 when young disgruntled army officers (NPRC) overthrew it. The political situation had gone full circle 30 years later in 1997 when Kabba, leader of the SLPP, and his supporters, including Hinga Norman, sought refuge in Conakry, Guinea as result of a military coup by AFRC +RUF that cut short the democratic process. Is it a déjàvu?
Patronage, clientellesm, or the abuse of it was the direct offshoot of tribal politics. The incoming government rewarded party faithful who also belong to the tribe identified with the ruling party. The patronage system was not based on merit or efficiency and it was put in place at the expense of members of the tribes associated with the losing party. These were perceived as not been sympathetic to the ruling party. The latter were even demeaned, harassed and in some cases, irregularly removed from their official positions to make way for newcomers. This same phenomenon was applied to all sectors of government including public service and parastaltals. It was by this route that inefficiency, bad management and corruption infiltrated into the public sector and has since remained there.
Because of the new policy of recruitment or, rather, replacement of public service workers, the structures of good governance started to crumble until they became what they are today- a pale shadow of their original selves. Proper management based on accountability and transparency was abandoned. Audit queries were ignored with impunity as long as the subject of the query was a party faithful. In this way corruption- vampire of the system- found its way into the public domain and has been deeply rooted there.
Sierra Leone has suffered most from the extension of similar tribal politics into the judiciary as well as the police and military or the army. For nearly 30 years now, recruitment into the army too has been based on tribal and political patronage. The ruling government regarded the army as well as the police as instruments of the ruling party, insulating it from the people and ensuring that however unpopular the party in power became, it remained in office indefinitely.
The mode of recruitment into the army was altered from the one based on qualification to one based on political, tribal or regional affiliation. The latter method of recruitment involved the hierarchy of the ruling party vetting potential recruits and giving cards for recruitment only to those who proved to be party faithful. In the course of time, the army came to be composed almost entirely of men and women loyal only to the ruling party. The result of this mode of recruitment was that every soldier had a potential patron and collectively, those patrons belonged to the ruling party, to which the army owed its loyalty and allegiance, and not to the nation. In such a situation the army’s loyalty and allegiance, even if there is a change of government due to democratic process, remain with its original patrons. This was true of SLPP (sierra people’s party) or APC (all people’s congress) and lately NPRC (national provisional ruling council). Each one of these political entities had used tribal and patronage politics in the public service; parastatals, judiciary, police and the army in order to polong their stay in power.
Some may be right to say that the elites must take some of the blame for this predicament because of their participation in bad governance by performing roles such as political advisers and military intelligence personnel. It may be also true that some elites felt they could advance personally only staying overseas while others thought that anything political should be of no concern to them. However, we seem to forget that sometimes the only „Qualification” for an important position in government in Sierra Leone was „unquestionable loyalty and allegiance to the ruling government.
Tribilisation of politics, military coups, patronage or clientellism in public service and other institutions of state led to weak and underdeveloped state, which was neither effective nor legitimate in the eyes of majority of sierra Leoneans. Such a state is ultimately predestined to fail. That is why the people of Sierra Leone have been experiencing political mismanagements, economic disenfranchisement and finally war for the past decades.
What should be done? Here is my take on it:
Primarily, all sectors of government, public services as well as private sectors should be insulated from any form of Tribalism, politicisation and patrimonialism. The administrative, judiciary, executive, the army as well as the police are holy properties of the state and they should remain as such.
Any ruling government should appoint its ministerial team based not on past position, or party affiliations or tribal background. The cabinet should be a small, dynamic team of people who have the trust of the people and the ability to get things done. The government should be transparent and corrupt-free and should be a government for the whole, and not just a portion of Sierra Leone, and throughout its term of office, it should reflect this in the conduct of affairs of state.
Political parties should shed away the old skin of ideologies based on tribe, region or background and evolve into parties that transcend all tribal and regional boundaries. The interest of the state should be bigger than that one of any single individual, the tribe, region or the party. A party that represents all tribes and regions of Sierra Leone should be the standard worthy of emulation. The last thing the country needs right now is die-hard and old guard mentality of party politics. The country is rather in dire need of healing and reconciliatory politics, whereby the interest of the nation takes the pole position before any individual, party or regional considerations.
The election or re-election of any ruling party should be a function of good performance and results. The electorate should be empowered to judge and decide whether a political party is legible for election or re-election based purely on performance and results. Binding laws should be in place that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for parties or party members to rig or influence the outcome of elections.
The civil society should be empowered in order to participate in the day-to-day political, social, economic and cultural discourse of the state. An independent media should be allowed, within the confines of media laws, to operate freely in the country.
We should make corruption a discipline and introduce it in primary and secondary school curricula as well as in adult public education programmes. The importance of corruption in relation to societal development and its recognition and prevention will be taught in those lessons.
Finally, governments must or should focus on social development, particularly health and education, to make up the large deficit that Sierra Leone has in these areas. During the era of massive political mismanagement and economic disenfranchisement in Sierra Leone, education and health were the most hard-hit victims. Due to the then prevailing patronage and tribal political systems, education and health services were at their lowest levels. Those decades were indeed lost decades for education. A well-educated and healthy workforce is a sine qua non for growth and economic development of any country. More resources should therefore be allocated for youth and adult educational and training programs in order to make our society fit for the challenges of globalisation.
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