Lecture delivered Monday Jan. 30th at the Pre. Lunching of
Transformation and development Conference at Miatta Conference hall
It is in that spirit that I want to say that, with all of us putting the brakes on our unfortunate drift towards disaster, Sierra Leone has a good chance to be a strong and viable nation with the right leadership and attitude. I feel a sense of pride in who we are, and a determination to rise from where the world continues to place us: the bottom of the index of human development.
From the rugged hills of Kabala to the swamp of Rotifunk; from the mines in Marampa to the college classrooms in Njala, Fourah Bay, Jui and Milton Margai, we can, with determination, create some of the technological and agricultural breakthroughs we are going to need to tackle the challenges of the next fifty years. We have the resources to do so; what we need is the breaking down of old and unnecessary barriers to our progress; we need a new vision, a new direction, and a sense of oneness.
I therefore propose a rational, national dialogue: ONE BASED ON COMMON SENSE, REASON AND OPTIMISM: a dialogue in which platitudes are replaced with practical ideas; one, on whose vehicle, a strong hand is central to development; a time when we begin to utilize the energetic pool of talent-whether old, young, or of whatever cultural or regional identity to manifest the success and integrity of our national development. I urge all who mean well for Sierra Leone to stop thinking inside the old, circumscribed box, based on perceived rights – whether they be the divine rights of governance or of inheritance to step out and begin to think of a willingness to put Sierra Leone first; to ennoble us with the right attitude towards the idea of an alternative perception about this country. If we truly wish to make this country great, we can do so by making our political platforms less volatile, less caustic, more civilized and humane. We can reform our legal system so that people begin to feel they can be assured of equity in the dispensation of justice.
Now for something very close to my heart: the importance of reading and learning in our future.
I believe there is a lot to be said I, a poet, was invited to give this keynote address:
‘Literature is the miraculous arm with which we will liberate a people who have been denied a voice; an identity.’
Sadly, one of the things that we have lost in this country, one of the unacceptable realities confronting us, AS WE SEEK TO TRANSFORM OURSELVES, is that the level of our literacy and reading is, for want of a better description, very, very low. Believe you me, I have seen some of the essays of recent Fourah Bay College graduates and I wanted to hit the roof!
When I was a child, the city of Freetown had great book shops. In addition to the C.M.S. Bookshop, there was O.S. Williams on Bombay Street and quite a few others. There were debating societies in our secondary schools, where students could practice the art of speaking. We wrote letters; especially by young men to women that they wanted to date; letters beginning with these famous lines:
Having caught sight of your magnificent beauty;’
People who were well read and educated were deeply respected. Then, one day, someone hijacked the very notion of spending time learning or reading anything, and told us not to bother anymore: The new catchphrase was:
Den say Bailor Barrie, you say Davidson Nicol’
Since then, as evident in the decline in our educational system, the premium placed on learning has taken a steep decline, and you don’t have to ask the Minister of Education to tell you how low it has been in the past twenty years. Surely, as we rethink our developmental strategy, as we embark on the next fifty years of our nationhood, we must create a new ethos.
We need the Bailor Barries and the Davidson Nicols, but we can also benefit from the contribution that other, equally important people can make to the development of Sierra Leone. We must create a milieu in which teachers yes, teachers are once again deeply respected and well paid. Because, if I can stand here today and give this lecture, it is because my mother, who was my first teacher, took me by the hand, when I was four years and six months, and brought me to the Bethel Amalgamated school on Easton Street, where I was received by a bunch of teachers; all of whom were women!
In the new milieu that I envisage, there must be an opportunity for our poets, writers, carpenters, craftsmen and women, sculptors, designers, musicians and others to make significant contributions.
And speaking of teachers, we cannot have good teachers without the resources for them to do their job. In an age when children in other developing nations are beginning to use computers in their classrooms, our teachers and children are starved for books; and I believe this is the only country in the world without a national book publishing policy.
Whereas Nigerian or Ghanaian children are encouraged to read books written by their own authors in all subjects, Sierra Leone remains a country where, fifty years after independence, ninety-nine percent of the books we are using in our schools and colleges were written by non-Sierra Leoneans. How can we modernize with pride if we do not know who we are? Are we ashamed of our own talent? Mr. Minister of Education, here is a job for you to tackle!
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