Lawlessness at work

In Chinua Achebe’s award winning short story, ‘Surviving The Peace’, a man who has been able to survive the war, dodging government troops and rebel forces and even keeping his old Flying Pigeon bicycle intact by burying it behind his hut where it remained till the end of hostilities, is nearly killed when armed robbers attack his home, demanding that he handover the ‘akara’ money he had been collecting.

In Acehebe’s story, a lot of people were not so lucky to survive the peace as they were gunned down by armed robbers, by disgruntled and traumatized ex-combatants and by the police who are supposed to protect their lives and property. All these evens took place during the peace, and that is why the writer aptly named his work, ‘Surviving The Peace.’

Here in Sierra Leone, the same situation seems to be unfolding. The guns of war are silent, but the guns supposed to maintain the peace seem to be more dangerous. At lease, during the war, you know there is an attack and you are geared, psychologically, to face it and be confronted with the options of fleeing somewhere.

In the case of the present, every night, the people are sleeplessly trapped in their houses, listening to the ominous sound of guns as they wait for the night robber to put them to sleep.

Then there is the indiscipline of law enforcement officers. These are the ones who should protect life and property and act as the epitome of discipline and law.

Alas, some, if not most law enforcement officers have become dons of indiscipline, causing havoc and mayhem wherever they are let loose from the confines of their seniors. A typical example has been the activity of police and soldiers fighting each other in Waterloo, causing panic among the populace. All this shows that there is a problem which is rapidly getting out of hands.

There is also the lawlessness of commercial vehicle drivers, who have now, it seems, regarded Ernest Bai Koroma’s administration as a free for all jamboree.

Adding to this state of lawlessness in the country are the bike riders, who, when ordered off the central business district disobeyed, and with impunity drove in front of State House loudly blaring their horns and creating a general cacophony, all to show that they are also above any law.

In schools, in colleges, in government offices, the cancer has successfully entered and is operating, growing daily and gaining strength.

Lawlessness in our society today is a concern which needs not only to be expressed but also to be confronted and surmounted, and as the present government is claiming to be rebranding the country, it is important that this rebranding process starts with the people, and it should also include the leaders whom, it seem have accepted this lawless culture with resignation.

The mechanism in fighting this menace of lawlessness has to be practical in actual terms to see that there is a change and a change for the better. No one can fool us into thinking that this is not a problem existing in our society, it is.

The government of Ernest Bai Koroma is saddled with a lot of dead wood which if allowed to remain, will entail total backwardness and a reversal of all the great attributes of the present government and clog the arteries of development. In such a situation, only a conscious leader, differentiating between sycophancy and true patriotism and well meaning citizenry can pull the nation out of the present nemesis.

The alternative is a failed state.

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