By Jonah Man of God
Sierra Leoneans are not known for speaking the truth. There is a dearth of people speaking out in public that will or can change our appalling social and economic realities that have been forced on us due to the shenanigans of political players. In Sierra Leone the lack of truth from the public space has turned the table around on the people to the point where the people we elect to run our government have become thorns in our flesh. How can the people we hire to run our government become our lords? How did this situation change?
If we were to speak the truth when and where it matters most, Sierra Leone would have been the envy of the world. For a city founded 232 years ago, Freetown cannot be compared to any other world city that was even founded 200 years after Freetown.
After six hundred years since Sierra Leone was discovered by the Portuguese and after over two hundred and thirty-two years since the British established Freetown, the nation of Sierra Leone is still suffering from a lack of people with the audacity to speak the truth and so rescue the society from heading in the wrong direction in all aspect of public life, which direction is also affecting our private lives.
This failure to speak the truth when it matters most has affected the entire fabric of society to the point where the truth is being compromised at every turn of the way, with the society left worse for wear at the end of the day. The nation finds itself in an endless cycle of duty bearers failing to do things by the rule of law or the accepted processes and procedures to the point where among the general population there is always a contention between the people as to what is right or wrong, normal or unacceptable.
If we were to speak the truth in Sierra Leone we would be honest that our government is cash strapped. The government is broke and cannot wholly survive from the taxes we pay. Out of a population of 7.5 million, two and a half million are above the age of retirement while two million are below the legal age for work. From the three million left only one million are formally employed with the other two million doing some kind of business in the informal sector. How can our government survive on taxing one million people and having to pay a monthly government wage bill of over Le400 billion to pay civil servants? This is why we have all these taxes that we don’t know how they are benefitting us.
According to a well-placed source at the Ministry of Finance, out of a population of 7.5 million in Sierra Leone only 2 per cent benefit from government largesse in terms of jobs, government contracts and the revenues generated from the collection of taxes and the rise in the prices of goods and services. The rest of the population, he went on, survives either by the grace of God or the workings of the devil.
Asked to give the reason for this unholy slicing of the government pie, he said the people of Sierra Leone, from the person in the employ of the party that is running the government of the day to the average man on the street, have failed the nation by speaking what those in power want to hear as opposed to the plain truth. The truth has long been sacrificed on the altar of personal interest or personal ambition.
‘It wasn’t too long ago that Mr Bio said those who are corrupt don’t do so for their political parties or village or town; they are corrupt only to benefit themselves. In the same way those who are in the position to speak the truth on issues of national importance with the tendency to polarise the society, who have the power and training to clarify issues for those who are ignorant of the facts, which I may say represents a huge part of the population, fail in their duty to speak truth to power because they have to consider how speaking the truth affects their pockets or bottom line,’ said the technocrat working in the Ministry of Finance.
For their part, these people see the truth, see the wrongs being perpetrated, but still fail to speak the truth either because of conscience or according to the terms of reference of their positions or may not want t hurt their paymasters. Apart from denying the people the clarity they crave and deserve on issues of national or local importance, they go as far as condoning or pampering the lie while the truth is suppressed.
Joining the conversation, a public sector worker speaking on condition of anonymity said the society has been in denial about the spread of the kush epidemic across the country.
‘If we were allowed to speak the truth we will all say the Sierra Leone Police force and the people at customs that man all our ports of entry across the country but mainly at the main ports at Water Quay and the International Airport are responsible for the spread of kush. We will also blame the pharmacies for importing so much tramadol into the country without qualifying these imports by the number of prescriptions given out to people to acquire the pain killer.”
“Instead we have a drug that should only be had with a prescription that anyone can get over the counter. But because we are failing to speak the truth that the majority of the people that sell drugs are either security people or they have some kind of deal with the police stations in their areas of operation where for a certain amount of money the police would look the other way or turn a blind eye to your activities. This is the only society where you will hear that the police stations routinely return arrested drugs and cash from raiding drug dealers after the dealer would have gone to the station and shake several hands. These golden handshakes have resulted to a society where four out of five young people are addicted to some form of controlled substance. This is the unbridled truth if we are allowed to speak the truth in this country. The political will is not there to eradicate drug addiction, abuse and trade because everyone is on the take and benefits somehow from the trade,’ the man who described himself as a public sector worker noted.
Today all across this great and rich land full of desperately poor people the people with the power to say “enough is enough” that can really make a difference in clarifying the actions of those in positions of power have allowed themselves to be compromised, allowed for their integrity to be tarnished, all because they fear losing their positions.
A trader at one of the busiest marketplaces in the Central Business District – CBD said we should not only blame those in positions of trust to be only ones that are duty bound to speaking the truth on issues of national importance so as to clarify things for those who don’t know. He said the entire society is duty bound to forget personal, party or tribal consideration to speak the truth according to God and their conscience.
‘We all have the power to checkmate whatever any party government of Sierra Leone would try to convince us of apart from the rule of law or the procedures that govern how they should govern. While we know that those that have been given positions and contracts in a country where both are seriously hard to come have given their consideration to the brown paper or envelop culture that is rampant in offices of government ministries, departments and agencies, what about the rest of the society? Have we also been blinded by those in power to ignore what others are saying only to listen to what our tribesmen or partisans have to tell us? Don’t we have the independence of mind to ask why certain things are happening this way while the rest of the society and our international friends are saying they are not supposed to happen the way they are or have been happening?’ the trader asked.
He continued: ‘We know that because these people in positions of trust that are doing things against their conscience have their hands and mouths literally everywhere, we should not expect them to speak the truth to power. Even among us as a people we have to start speaking the truth and calling our leaders to task. If we are to speak the truth we will first address the lie that the people working in Parliament, State House and the Judiciary, including all others in government ministries, departments and agencies form the government of Sierra Leone. The truth is that we the people of Sierra Leone, that is our entire population, we make up the government of Sierra Leone. It is we the people that hire a political party to run our government who in turn hire others from the society to help them run this very big business, our national business where we are all CEOs.’
The men that spoke to FORUM said the solutions to all our public problems are right in front of our faces but because of our personal leanings or ambition, or fear of being ostracized or insulted or assaulted, we are all forced to maintain the lie that those we hired or elected to run our government would want to force down our throats.
‘Let me end by asking this question. Why is it that we as a people are still in contention about who is speaking the truth after the main opposition APC, the local elections watch group NEW, members of elections observer missions including the Carter Centre, our development partners, ECOWAS and the AU have all questioned the truth about the results that announced the incumbent as the winner of the 24 June 2023 presidential elections? The reason is simple: everyone is speaking the truth that will benefit them, that will see them keep their government jobs and contracts or continue to benefit from the government in one way or the other. Even many of your friends in the media have compromised on the truth and will regularly go against any other news medium that will want to report on what the people have to say. Unless we are all dedicated to speaking the truth to power, Sierra Leone will never develop beyond where we are today,’ the technocrat at the Ministry of Finance warned the people of Sierra Leone.
