By ORKASU MEDIA SIERRA LEONE
Abdul Robert Blessing Dumbuya_
Sierra Leone is not short of promises. What we lack is a promise kept.
Today, our young people are asking one question: “Will this country still be worth inheriting tomorrow?” That question is bigger than politics. It is about food on the table, jobs after graduation, medicine in the hospital, and dignity in our homes. It is about whether the next 10 years will look like the last 10.
This is why Dr. Ibrahim Bangura says “Now or Never.” Now is the time to stop managing crisis and start building a covenant with the people. A covenant that puts Sierra Leone first, before party, before personality, before power.
For too long we have treated governance like a relay race where the baton is dropped every 5 years. Projects start and stop. Policies change with faces. Citizens are spectators in decisions that shape their lives. The result? A generation tired of waiting, and a nation bleeding talent.
Dr. Bangura’s concept is simple and radical: HEAL. UNITE. BUILD.
HEAL the wounds of exclusion. Government must speak with the people, not at them. From Freetown to Kailahun, from the market woman to the university graduate, every voice must matter in how we amend laws, spend money, and plan our future. Pain ignored becomes protest. Pain heard becomes progress.
UNITE beyond party lines. The APC, SLPP, and every Sierra Leonean share one flag, one anthem, one destiny. Our divisions are manufactured. Our problems are shared. Dr. Bangura calls on all flagbearer aspirants, the APC general membership, and civil society to rise above ego and form a National Compact — an agreement that no government will toy with the Constitution, the economy, or public trust without the people’s consent.
BUILD for the next generation. That means factories, not just speeches. Skills, not just certificates. Roads, power, and internet as basic rights, not luxuries. It means protecting the Constitution as a shield for citizens, not a tool for those in power.
The pain is real: rising prices, unemployment, and hopelessness. Adding constitutional uncertainty to that pain is like pouring salt on an open wound.
Sierra Leoneans have survived war, Ebola, and hardship. We are resilient. But resilience is not an excuse for neglect.
Now or Never.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Let us put the party aside. Let us put ambition aside.
Let us put Sierra Leone first.
