By Isaac Massaquoi
Not everybody will accept this: Emerson Bockarie's take on the major issues of the day in Sierra Leone in his latest album was the major talking point throughout the country which closed the year 2013 and started the year 2014. Can I please see the hands up of those in agreement with me.
In typical Sierra Leone style, the perspectives have definitely been informed by people's political leanings. So ruling party that is now at the end of Emerson's fire thinks it's been unfairly treated because statements in some of the songs are over the top and they are intended to ridicule the government's achievements over the last six years.
Members and supporters of the main opposition who partly blame the Borbor Belleh singer for their defeat in 2007 are ecstatic that their political enemies have now received an unbelievable kicking from one of Sierra Leone's greatest musicians. They've suddenly found a line of attack and a set of teeth that could really hurt the APC.
Predictably, the disagreements have centred on Emerson's reference to the country's two main tribes - Themne and Mende - and their tendency to dominate power by means of a winner-takes-all attitude to state governance.
The point is, every time our tribes are mentioned in unflattering light, we bristle and withdraw to our trenches to prepare for war. I insist that the real question facing Sierra Leone is not which tribes people belong to. The question is how to make politics work in the best interest of all the people of Sierra Leone. And we have very little time to come up with answers.
My view is that this country needs a radical overhaul of its orientation and political system to usher in a culture that rewards hard work regardless of who works hard. We must end this wicked manipulation of tribal sentiments in the crudest of ways for private gain.
The late journalist, Richie Olu Gordon once wrote that there were indeed only two tribes in Sierra Leone as far as he was concerned. The first is the political class that emerged post independence and has become extremely wealthy and arrogant by stealing the nation's resources and has deployed repressive and ruthless structures to maintain their hold on power and the nectar that flows from it. The second tribe is the rest of the people who bear the brunt of corruption, injustice and general bad governance. The second group includes people from all the artificial barriers we call tribes. I agree with the late man entirely. And I will hang it there for now.
The Sierra Leone Police under Francis Munu came in for a lot of criticism during 2013. I don't think Munu came to office expecting to enjoy a comfortable life without having the media shining their light on his so-called FORCE FOR GOOD. In general, the police held their own reasonably well against rising crime in urban centres in particular. Criminals are now very sophisticated and well connected throughout society, making it extremely difficult to nail them.
So in the face of public outcry against crime expressed in various media platforms and an aggressive body of citizen journalists, the Sierra Leone police with their traditional approach to public relations found themselves completely outflanked. While they remain in their elaborate and hackneyed cover-up mentality, authentic information is sometimes leaked from within their ranks to quickly appear on social networking sites making nonsense of their official version of the story.
We witnessed a handful of such events during 2013. But the way the police handled the killing by their officers of a former US soldier and a pupil of Ansarul Secondary School was particularly disgraceful. I can't understand why some in the police think that publicly accepting they made mistakes that resulted in deaths is such a bad thing. All they need to ensure is that such mistakes are not as frequent as to worry a people now very aware of how the police should behave in a democracy. The police go into 2014 with the record of at least one killing for every civil disturbance they are called upon to deal with. This is unacceptable.
Inevitably the criminal Justice system as a whole will remain a topic for serious conversation in 2014. I have met people who have incredible stories to tell about their attempt to get justice through the court system in Sierra Leone. The consistent line in all their stories is that justice is very expensive, beyond the reach of the ordinary man, it's as slow as being irrelevant and, rightly or wrongly, many Sierra Leoneans believe the system is being corrupted in favour of the rich and powerful.
During 2013, a lawyer went on radio and complained about the way the judiciary handled bail issues. The interactive discussion that followed carried a clear message about how the people felt about their criminal justice system. The only bright spot in this bleak picture is the Attorney General's attempt to modernise the Criminal Procedure Act. I understand the sentencing policy will also be reviewed. I hope at the end of it all young people will not be locked up in prison for minor offences for which community service should do. We definitely lock up too many people in this country.
The central Pademba Road prison is overcrowded and the prison boss is going to extraordinary lengths to avoid visits from human rights organisations including the official national Human Rights Commission. A justice system that keeps on remand for more than a year people accused of stealing a goat should be considered a failure. A justice system that records extremely high re-offending rates is a failure too.
So while the ministry of Internal Affairs plans to take the main jail and the human misery it represents out of sight from Freetown, the government must be reminded that locking up so many people is not the solution, no matter how far from the capital.
Unless the government ensures social justice throughout the country it shouldn't be surprised to find out that there is now a group of mostly young people who think it's better to be in prison than to be walking the streets of Freetown without a job, food or shelter.
A major highlight of 2013 was the Sierra Leone Football Association election in July. I have never seen an election process as manipulated as that. I wrote an article explaining my experience working on the SLFA election committee that was replaced by the FIFA Normalisation Committee that organised last July's election. I was hoping to be challenged on some of the issues I raised but those for whom the bell tolled thought it was best to stay put.
Let's be honest, the whole election process shamed Sierra Leone in front of the world community. Politicians, public officials and even civil servants took part in a grand coalition to produce an unopposed president, come what may. When authentic delegates boycotted the election to force the Normalisation Committee to look into their complaints dispassionately, the SLFA secretariat hurriedly manufactured delegates to legitimise the process under the noses of corrupt FIFA.
The Normalisation Committee ruthlessly removed the formidable road block in the shape of Mohamed Kallon, on the way to crowning Isha Johansen president of the SLFA. I am itching to have a debate on their grounds for disqualifying Kallon in particular. Hope the opportunity shows up soon.
Mrs Johansen hasn't made peace at the SLFA and while it would appear from the surface that things are coming back to normal after all the acrimony, the reality is the civil war goes on because the well-structured conventional army that belonged to Rodney Michael and friends at the time of the campaign, has now been split into small, mobile and highly effective commando units that continue to operate with the ultimate goal being to correct the injustice orchestrated by some members of the Normalisation Committee with the support of FIFA and their fixer.
It's traditional in Sierra Leone to always look ahead to a New Year with hope that our lives would be better and we have no reason not to commit suicide if we had no such hope. But let's be realistic, life is going to continue to be difficult in this country and the world in general. I am not fooled by what politicians are saying. It's their job to make us feel good about ourselves and our country as they prepare us for another empty ritual called elections.
Our governance systems and institutions are weak and are under immense pressure from politicians with their l'etat c'est moi attitude. The result is that citizens are beginning to realise that the state has been hijacked by all sorts of people including corrupt multinationals, national politicians and their hangers-on throughout society. The only thing keeping someone like me hoping things might change is the immortal words of reggae musician Joe Hills in his song A Slice of Mount Zion: "I know wickedness will prevail but only for a little while". Happy 2014.
(C) Politico 07/01/14
