BBC’s soap opera programme, ‘Resident President’ always makes me laugh with their biting satires. Look at the ridicule they recently subjected Gambia’s strong man to, but ended up endorsing his proclamation to sack lazy civil servants. You might not like it, but of course life needs a little bit of laughter especially in these days of economic squeeze.
Our collective motto in Sierra Leone is: ‘Unity, Freedom and Justice’. For over fifty years we have not succeeded in meeting our political objectives. If we are not making the same old mistakes we made yesterday, we are making spectacularly new ones, so in effect it is three steps forward and two steps backward. You see no work done at all. Do we have to continue to be satisfied with mediocrity and blame everything on poverty? No, I disagree! We are not even poor; we have all it takes to move us up if those behind the steering wheel are ready for it. May be you need to know why when things go wrong, it is most times the politicians we blame. Why not? They have so much power in their hands and they virtually take all the decisions that affect our livelihoods. Just see what political will can do. You see when some of the protagonists of the current government told us that Sierra Leone is going to be turned into a works yard; a lot of critics dismissed it as ‘word nar mot’-mere rhetoric. Of course, granted that the exaggeration was hyperbolical but things are happening. Even Kennedy Street has gotten so attention just now! Well you might say these mini projects here and there are just like Sunday Clothes worn for the purpose; in this case for the purpose of election. Whatever!
Do you think Sierra Leone has a long way to go, to have Statesmen? Yah, I think I agree with you. The term politician has come to drag along many derisive connotations over the years and this has distanced it so much from the term Statesman. Statesmen take important parts in the management of state affairs. They are disinterested political leaders. If someone is statesmanlike, that means he or she is gifted with, and showing wisdom and a broad-minded outlook in public affairs. The statesman rides the moral high horse as they say. When we look around today how many of them do we have? How many times have our people in authority taken very erroneous decisions that adversely affect people for life?
Our Constitution says in order to meet our motto as a nation, we need to promote national integration and unity and discourage discrimination on the grounds of place of origin, circumstances of birth, sex, religion, ethnic or linguistic association or ties. Wow! This is very interesting, well stated. I always say that when it comes to the relevant laws, we have them but what indeed is the use of laws if they are not implemented or complied with. Check the many laws that have been made over the years without even having the moral obligation to disseminate it to the populace. Many structures put in the documents are yet to be put in place. Why are we so cosmetic and satisfied with mere mediocrity? We will never grow as a nation if we do not start acting outside the box. For us, to get what we have never had, we need to do what we have never done.
Unity is part of our national motto. Of course this word is an overbeaten horse. Every body says unity is strength but no body really works towards this. People prefer individualism mainly because they hardly trust the next man. They do not trust the next man because many people today are not trustworthy. They are not trustworthy because they think everybody else is a crook and should be 419ed clean and simple.
Do we ever get really united when we drink politics, sleep politics, marry politics and work politics? Spare me any agony, how do we get united when at every turn we are exhibiting tendencies of near xenophobia and nepotism? I agree and I know that yes we had no role in deciding our ethnicity, but do we have to carry it along at the expense of other people? Through the decades, government after government has been promoting ethnic bias. This should not continue if unity is to be in our grip. Interestingly on January 6, we appeared all united to help each other in order to survive the AFRC misadventure. We shared the little food we had and accommodated each other in a way that we were never seen before. The irony is that are we to wait for cataclysmic situations before we come together? Of course no! One major thing that enhances unity is the even distribution of resources and fair spread of development programmes. Let us remember that the problems Nigeria has are not all religiously tied. Part of the reason is the long history of the non development of the north as against the rest of the country. Illiteracy, ignorance and poverty of one sector of society against the interest of the others, can hardly breed unity. Uneven distribution of distribution is just one reason amongst the plethora of reasons identified for the Nigeria nemesis.
According to the constitution of Sierra Leone, the Land that we claim to love, for the purpose of promoting national integration and unity, the state has to do certain things. In the first place it should provide adequate facilities for and encourage free mobility of people, goods and services throughout the country. You might say here that this is very ambitious, but for a comparatively small country like Sierra Leone with all the many natural resources, this is definitely doable. The other thing is that the state should secure full rights of residence for every citizen in all parts of the state. Here, one reminds himself of the obnoxious laws on land ownership disparities between the Freetown area and the regions, and also between the regions. All such laws should be uniform. Unity cannot blossom where citizens have limitations to reside in certain parts of the country. One thing that is promoting disunity is the so called secret or sacred societies which are promoted in different parts of the country. In this 21st Century, I think all the cultural and traditional trappings that do not keep us together as a nation, should be abolished.
We also know that the constitution talks about the state’s obligation to protect and defend the liberty of the individual, enforce the rule of Law and ensure the efficient functioning of government services. Here, you would not want to feel good about the recklessness with which some state functionaries misuse resources and abuse their powers with outlandish impunity. Even the foot citizen thinks properties belonging to the state should be misused as if the state was an isolated entity.
The state has another obligation and that is to take all steps to eradicate all corrupt practices. It is always easy to blame corruption on poverty, but again how about those affluent compatriots who indulge in it. Do you want to call it greed or what? Agreed that tremendous efforts have been made to fight graft, but it still remains the one singular bane of the nation, Salone…land that we love. If you take a look at the Anti-Corruption Act, you see that it is so very difficult for an average public servant to be corrupt free. The deeply entrenched practice of accepting tips before certain functions are performed will remain very difficult to stop. In fact, some offices have given it some kind of legitimacy and actually refer to it as facilitation fee, for which no receipt is given. This slows down government business so much so that people are left frustrated. To turn to the legal system and justice also sometimes is like being between the rock and the hard place. Now who do you turn to? The Magistrate courts are there, the Lawyers are there… but tell me where is justice? Ponder over this!
The Constitution prescribes that the State’s economic objectives include the harnessing of all the natural recourses of the nation to promote national prosperity and an efficient, dynamic and self-reliant economy. This is why the improvement on the Mines and Mineral Act over the years is appreciated. The only thing we should watch is the fact that when it comes to reviewing mining Laws, we have to make it more participatory and actually make haste slowly. The constitution does not say that only the areas where minerals are found should benefit from the proceeds. Understandably of course, people affected by mining activities must be adequately compensated. Like Dick Cheney says, ‘The good lord did not see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States… but we go where the business is. In like manner, development should cut across ethnic lines and partisan considerations. By this way, we will live together as one, if what the late Lucky Dube said in one of his songs’ ‘together as one’.
By Ben Cambayma
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