When over a year ago, the Secretary of State for the United States of America Hilary Clinton, said that any business is as good as the environment in which it operates.
I think she was right, very, very right. This seems to be clearly manifested in Sierra Leone, where even the hitherto honest men and women, end up turning round and getting involved in graft. Perhaps what is most annoying is that we have the bulk of our compatriots, some 75 percent, hardly understanding statecraft and the principles involved in governance.
My goodness, this section of the population is so significant that leaving them at their level, may well be a latent source of insecurity for everybody.
Sometimes, people are quick to push for peace but forget to go for something that builds peace which is justice.
Let me make something clear, you cannot plait the hair when you have lice in that hair because the owner of the head, will perforce loosen the hair.
Like somebody says in one of the Nigerian movies, in a democracy, the majority will have their way but the minority will have their say.
I always say that democracy itself has an aspect of tyranny. Tyranny because, we all know that the majority cannot be always right but because democracy in most part, gives leeway to numbers. The problem about our political numbers is that the majority of our numbers are deprived of the level of understanding that makes them contribute from an informed standpoint.
For example, during the campaign period, I asked several would-be voters whether they knew their candidates and most of them answered in the negative. Now tell me, how you can vote for people whose names you do not even know. Yes, you will tell me they do not need to know the candidates. But if we continue to carry on like this, can we solve the ethnicity and regionalism in our politics?
While many well-meaning Sierra Leoneans try not to be caught in the middle of the political quagmire, that we have found ourselves, it is also a great disservice to our beloved country not to promote justice.
As they say, only the truth shall set us free. Now for some hindsight.
Tell me, just think back on the number of unresolved cases lingering around the courts. Even those that have been concluded, took donkey years and most, not justly decided. So you see, our first problem is the justice system. People with money and power always take advantage of a weak judiciary. We know that the judiciary is grossly depraved of manpower and so government needs to do much more to improve that very vital sector of our state.
Another arm of Government whose importance for democracy and good governance cannot be ignored, is the Parliament. One thing we need to note is that the hard work, commitment, capability, effectiveness and vibrancy of a Parliament is not known only by the number of laws it passes, but also by the level of democratic approaches taken in the process, especially the participation of the people they represent and furthermore the relevance, understanding, effectiveness and compliance of the laws.
We cannot praise ourselves for passing laws like distributing loaves of bread at the stadium just to quench the momentary hunger. What has obtained in this our tiny republic is that some groups of people press for a law and then it is processed mainly for its political expedience oblivious of the ramifications of that particular law.
Take the Public Elections Act, that was hurriedly processed and there was hardly any time to popularize it. Parliament closed and honourable MPs went to their constituencies to try to win hearts and minds again to be re-elected. Well, some got new mandates, others lost. Problems with the very laws we make are at the root of the kind of injustice we suffer.
Just as poverty alleviation should be at the center of all development objectives, so rooting out injustice should form the central point of peace in the world.
Of all the reforms made immediately after the war, what we are yet to be proud of is the justice system. When we talk about separation of powers and rule of Law, with all their appendages, we are also talking about justice. Justice remains very central to our existence as human beings that it is a precondition to maintaining our dignity as human beings.
It is injustice that breeds anger and hate that extends to wars. Think of the scores of poor innocent people who are languishing in prison for crimes they never committed but the law ignored them for the simple crime that they are poor.
Even during the electioneering period, many youts that were arrested for various crimes are yet to be charged.
For the minors, we are yet to make very good provisions for their remand. Sometimes they are kept in cells meant for adults. These are the basic issues we need to be addressing because they make strong foundations for the growth of justice that builds peace. If you love peace, you need to love justice too. They are just inseparable, one nurtures the other and vice versa. We all now agree that our elections went on generally peacefully, but this does not mean there were not thousands of squabbles at the polling stations.
All this is led by politics through state governance. Whether you like it or not nobody actually escapes politics. Therefore it becomes imperative that we get interested in how political decisions affect us on a daily bases. So you can really be interested in politics without being a politician. In a broader sense everybody seems to be playing politics without knowing it. National power dynamics has politics at its centre for most of the time. Imagine the huge powers given to the president and the ministers.
No matter how much public views are brought on board, the onus lies with them for final decisions. Current debates on certain national issues point to the fact that people’s participation at various levels is at the minimal and even there, they are often ignored. Look, make no mistake, nobody would like to share power.
This is why government after government with the devolution pace in the decentralization process remains a huge lull.
Are we really practising partisan politics in a way that is acceptable? Why are we fastidious about doing all our elections on partisan basis when we are still bugged down with ethnicity and regionalism? How foolhardy this is?
Sometimes the rancour between parties is due to mistrust, itself a reflection of the psyche of the average Sierra Leonean.
There is indeed gross trust deficit between the governed and the governors and between the government and the opposition. With a now vibrant civil Society, the politicians are kept on their toes and they definitely do not like it that way. Modern development trends demand a great show of mutual respectability and information sharing. This is for the most part problematic, since trust is lacking. What we need to do is to address the things that cause the trust deficit. Here the best massage is justice. With justice, even the poor will enjoy dignity and will be happy. If our constitution guarantees this, why don’t we just do it?
By Ben Cambayma
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