By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Those who are not dead to global history will not wonder how Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s Founding Father and first Prime Minister, transformed his country from a Third World ‘low‑income and resource‑poor’ nation into a First World country now known as a ‘high‑income global hub’.
Yew was not a fictitious character taken directly from JK Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter’ with a magic wand which he could just ‘swish and flick’ (in Harry Potterspeak) to produce the action(s) and result(s) he wanted for his people and country. He was both a visionary and practical leader who believed that for a nation to survive, progress, and develop; strong state institutions must be built and made apolitical in their modus operandi.
And how he went about it was master class in its pure master class-ness. His administration recruited Singapore’s best and brightest citizens into the Police Force, Military, Civil Service, and Judiciary. He believed that these are the bastions on which a nation can progress and develop. Throughout his stewardship, he made members of the opposition felt part of the nation-building processes through his words and actions (Despite, at times, he was accused of high-handedness and dictatorial tendencies!). He provided leadership by example to the point that he became a personification of not only political correctness but a moral compass navigating a hopelessly hopeless nation at independence in 1965—just four years after Sierra Leone begged for hers from Britain!
Today, comparing Singapore and Sierra Leone is like comparing pebbles from the banks of the Sewa River and polished diamonds in Antwerp, Belgium. The enviable mineral resources which Singapore lacks at independence were what Sierra Leone had and still has in abundance. But the fundamental difference is that where Singapore was, and still is, endowed with visionary and transformative leadership; Sierra Leone lacked, and still lacks, that aplenty! And where Singapore groomed, and still grooms, patriotic leaders; Sierra Leone appears to be still doling out primitive and egotistical leaders!
Now, let me do an autopsy on the seemingly cadaver called Sierra Leone. Whilst I was growing up at Soja Tong, in central Freetown, in the early 1980s to mid-1990s and attending the Buxton Boys Primary School and later the Prince of Wales; the Police Force and Military were not institutions our parents wanted those of us with ‘intellectual promise’ to be part of in the future. Those institutions were being regarded as the ‘Las Station’ (pardon my colloquial Krio) for ‘drop-outs’ and the no-do-gooders by both middle class and working class families.
That willful misconception gained currency during the civil war (between 1991 and 2002) as ‘raray boy’ and ‘savisman’ (well, with the Krio language numbers and the ‘dem’ signify plurals) were recruited into those establishments with just two seemingly criteria: partisan and tribal statuses! That’s why it was little wonder that in the recent past, despite countless university graduates and professionally professionals are now in its fold, the Sierra Leone Police produced an Inspector General of Police whose comprehension and articulation of both the English and Krio languages were shallow like one of those pre-colonial chiefs who tried to communicate with slave traders.
Unlike Singapore, where the Police Force and Military under Lee Kuan Yew and successive leaderships were, and still are, apolitical; Sierra Leone’s appear to have been stripped off all professionalism due to tribalism and partisan politics. This disorder cannot be placed on the doorsteps of a single political party since independence, as both the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and the All People’s Congress (APC) have their own equal shares of those political malaises. As for the Sierra Leone Police, accusations still abound that the alleged architects for its seemingly current partisan and seemingly tribal colourations could be squarely laid on the shoulders of the late Bambay Kamara and Brima Acha Kamara (albeit debatable); whilst that of the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF) could be allegedly laid on the shoulders of the late Brigadier David Lansana and the late Chief Samuel Hinga Norman when he was Minister of Defence (also debatable).
As for the Sierra Leone Civil Service and Judiciary; like Singapore they were filled with Sierra Leone’s best and brightest citizens immediately after independence in 1961. Promotions in these two establishments then were based on educational, professional, and wealth of experience coupled with good moral standings in society. But all that were thrown to the dogs, allegedly, by Sir Albert Margai who unashamedly adulterated those two once enviable institutions with tribalism and partisan politics. And Siaka Stevens and Joseph Saidu Momoh did nothing to reinvent that wheel; they just kept spinning the same Margai-an wheel!
Even former President Ernest Bai Koroma cannot be excluded from such accusations. Throughout his two-term presidency, members of the SLPP consistently made accusations of the Bombalinization (don’t try to Google it; it just another One Dropian coinage) of his government. He, too, according to his opponents, kept spinning the same Margai-an wheel.
And at present, President Julius Maada Bio appears to be more extreme than Sir Albert Margai in spinning the Margai-an wheel. Just a quick audit of the current top echelons of the Sierra Leone Police Force, the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces, the Civil Service, and the Judiciary will give one the sickening impression that there seem to be only two criteria for recruitments and promotions into, and in, these institutions: one’s surname and region of birth!
Despite some Sierra Leoneans are hopefully hopeful that someday things might change with the emergence of visionary and transformative leaderships in, and from, both the APC and SLPP; I am still not optimistic. I’m not optimistic not because I am a pessimist but because of the arrogance and the I-Don’t-Care attitude with which these two hydra-headed monsters appear and reappear in successive governments in Sierra Leone.
Maybe, just maybe, the ‘beautiful ones’ have already been born. But the saddest reality is that they are now being breastfed by mothers who still believe in these hydra-headed monsters: partisan politics and tribalism!
It is on that note that I will end today’s One Dropian dropping with an often quoted quote: ‘a fish rots from the head down’. And that has always been Sierra Leone’s cardinal problem since independence in 1961 to date unlike Singapore whose fish had, and still, has a healthy head!
medsankoh@yahoo.com/+232-76-611-986