By Isaac Massaquoi
On a grey Saturday morning in April 2004, I arrived in Koidu town in the Eastern district of Kono for the first time. I was there to do feasibility studies for the setting-up of a community radio station for that district. Actually, it was my second time in Kono district because during the war years, I went up to a place called Ngo town as part of the SLBS team covering the aftermath of a horrific rebel attack on the area. The destruction we saw on the outskirts of Ngo town and indeed inside the town itself reminded me of what had happened in Telu Bongor in southern Sierra Leone. It was during our work, reporting the massacre at Telu Bongor that I met the late Hinga Norman who survived the attack by the skin of his teeth and later went on to a life of many highs and lows ending with his death in the custody of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Anyway, once I arrived in Koidu, I asked to see the father of one of my greatest friends, David Tam-Baryoh. The old man was out at the time. But I was shocked by what I saw in terms of the dilapidation of the Koidu town. I immediately called David. This was the question I put to him: "Is this the Koidu town you talk about all the time?" He knew where I was taking him so he didn’t ask for clarification. He replied; "Now you understand why some of us are very angry with this government."
About two weeks ago, another friend who had recently been deployed to my home district of Pujehun called me from the town, in much the same way I called David eight years ago and said: "I have finally seen this great Pujehun you talk about all the time". I noticed a little disappointment from her tone of voice. My reply; "one day things will change in Pujehun... but it’s still a wonderful people with very nice people." She chuckled and assured me she was fine but would tell some of her other Pujehun friends what she’d seen.
So here’s where I am taking you. In 2004, Kono, severely hit by the war, was clearly on its knees. In fact, my visit lasted about four hours before I pulled back to Makeni for want of reasonable accommodation particularly for the international guy who was with me on the trip. Last week, we carried an article by Journalist Sallieu Kamara, who visits Kono all the times. He argued that the changes that might have taken place there since the end of the war, have not significantly affected the ordinary person on the dusty roads of Koidu.
Koidu was a well-built place before the war, I was told, so there remains, even today, some semblance of infrastructural organisation. I have visited the place many times since 2004 and I can confirm that given the picture painted for me by indigenes including David, Kono will never be the same again. Hope I am not exaggerating here - it takes about five hours from Matotoka where any sign of good road ends to Koidu, not more than eighty kilometres. You travel on one of the worst roads in Sierra Leone with Bo – Mattru and Bandajuma – Gendama in the south running a close second.
Pujehun, even at the best of times was a truly difficult place. The war destroyed what little infrastructure existed particularly in the Zimmi area to the east of the district. Ten years after the war, both districts are doing very badly on all indicators of social development. By the way I have just been reading some UNICEF and UNDP documents to inform my argument. I once suggested to a group of Pujehun students that their district was the worst place in the whole world. At that time, Sierra Leone was last on the UN Human Development Index and on the local version of the HDI, Pujehun was last. The syllogism may be a little faulty because of some dead zones in HDI calculations and coverage area but it was my way of bringing the stark reality home to those who cared.
In the heat of the debate on the electoral registration issue of ORDINARILY RESIDENT people in Gendema and those coming from Liberia under the aegis of the Sierra Leone embassy, I decided for good reasons to partially ignore the raging debate to say to our readers that while registering and voting are extremely important to determine which party or individual gets to run the affairs of Sierra Leone, the real question forever remains how our people’s vote will impact their lives and circumstances. Will Charles Mambu’s 84-year-old Grand Mother’s vote decide, for example whether she will have food on her table everyday in sufficient quantity and acceptable quality? Will her vote keep her community peaceful? Will it bring her clean drinking water? Will her vote guarantee her children good health care and a decent education? Will it improve the roads? Will it bring her children who graduate from colleges the good jobs they deserve? I could go on and on.
It’s not as if we are asking these questions only now. One of the reasons for David Tam-Baryoh’s decision to start the now widely-listened-to Monologue programme ten years ago, was part of a desire to help enlighten the people of Kissy about their rights to hold leaders accountable to them and generally how to cope with disease, poverty, hopelessness and marginalisation. Ten years later, Kissy is a neighbourhood that represents the social contrasts of a typical modern African city like Freetown – fantastically rich and educated people and desperately poor uneducated folks. David used a little 50watts transmitter to explain government policies to the people and pass on messages on health and security matters. Like the radio station, the program has moved on in a significant way.
On the day former President Kabbah formally inaugurated the station, he was confronted with the troubles his compatriots face in the suburbs of Freetown. David’s speech at the occasion was a long list of woes. President Kabbah looked understandably a little uncomfortable. He set up one of his many Commissions of Inquiry, to find answers for the complete lack of basic utility services to the people of Kissy. I suppose you know what happened to the report Francis Gabbidon produced.
The truth is, those of us in cities can argue about things like the cost of air travel, paying the bills for satellite TV connections and the cost of goods in the many supermarkets springing up in Freetown today. But for the rest of our people outside the affluent areas of this capital, they only think about the small matters that Charles Mambu’s Grand Mother cares about.
Our collective desire to portray ourselves as a civilized democracy will continue to carry a huge scar as long as the majority of our people live in such vicious and grinding poverty. Democracy is much more than going to the polls every five years. In fact, if things continue this way - when for many people there appears to be no connection between the old woman’s vote and the policies and priorities her government pursues, the argument for Westminster-style democracy is seriously weakened at the core. It doesn’t seem much use talking about any other form of government but if democracy, with all the freedoms and promises of people power that come with it has failed to deliver in Sierra Leone, we have to ask whether some prudent social engineering wasn’t necessary yesterday so that the whole thing made sense to our people today.
I sense a disconnect here. What brings in the BRIDGE?
Look at this bridge for example. It means so much for more than fifty thousand Sierra Leoneans in Pujehun who live in an area accessible only by foot. I hear that in recent times the people have created a motor-cycle pathway to help move people and goods around. I took this picture about three years ago when the bridge was about 80% complete. Construction started three years prior to that. As I write, it remains about 15% more work to complete the job that will unlock the whole community to the rest of the world. Is that difficult for any government to do? The local council couldn’t care less; the SLRA has turned a blind eye. The terrain is so remote that SLBC /TV cameras hardly reach the people. May be that would have helped.
I have been banging on about Kono and Pujehun for the length of this piece and you probably should understand from the scenarios described above, but I am sure other districts are facing similar or even more difficult situations. I have been to all districts and headquarter towns in Sierra Leone and indeed some villages and hamlets across the country. I can assure you, there’s a lot of work to do. That doesn’t mean much hasn’t been done already.
