“We Must Be United”

The front page of The Exclusive of November 24, 2010 has this bold headline: “We Must Be United – President Koroma says”. (There was the usual pop-star-like photograph of the full-bodied white-haired bespectacled majestic-looking President Ernest Bai Koroma on its front page as well).  The newspaper reports that the President “has called on all Sierra Leoneans to stop the infighting and show commitment for the progressive development of the nation”.  The Exclusive quotes the President thus: “I am not only leading the APC, but all Sierra Leoneans, irrespective of party or tribe”.   Ernest Bai Koroma’s presidency has been castigated by nearly all the leading political opposition figures – from the SLPP’s John Benjamin, J.J. Saffa to the PMDC’s Charles Margai – as one that has caused the worst national polarization in post-independence history of Sierra Leone.  The result? The traditional political chasm between the South/East and North/West has widened; the explosively ethnic sentiments solidified.

The Global Times of November 24, 2010, quoted former APC Minister in the Siaka Stevens/Joseph Momoh governments (who was also former Commonwealth Office senior executive; former ECOWAS chief executive; currently an Elder in the opposition SLPP; born and bred in the Northern Province), Dr. Abass Bundu (speaking to the U.K. and Northern Ireland branches of the SLPP on 19th November, 2010) thus, “And since the elections (2007), one can say without exaggeration, that the country has never been polarized in peace time, especially between the North and the South-East.  It is also no exaggeration that the country is now standing on the edge of a precipice.  Whether the leaders can step back from the brink or step forward, is a matter about which no one can be certain”.   Apparently, the biggest leader at the peak of the mountain has decided that our country must step back from the tip of the precipice – using the imagery of Dr. Bundu.  The Bhagavad-Gita (which is like the Bible or Quran for hundreds of millions of people in the Indian sub continent) teaches that a leader must set the standard that the followership would follow.

A leader of a country – like former Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee – can say: ‘We are going to have the highest standard of education in the world; and transform our barren country into one of the most prosperous industrial countries through rewarding hard work, and enshrining Justice’.  The people of Singapore listened; and followed Lee – and Singapore morphed from being a country at the same developmental level as Sierra Leone sixty years ago into a country compared to the most prosperous countries in Europe today.  Or, a leader can say – like late President Master-Sergeant Samuel Kanyan Doe of Liberia did in the 1980s– ‘Only people who belong to my Krahn ethnic group should get top jobs; all other tribes are suspect in strategic national jobs, and must be shifted from there.  Kill non-Krahns, if you cannot force them to flee into exile’.  The Krahn people followed their leader, Doe.  And Liberia’s tribal schism worsened; the economy was destroyed; secret killings of non-Krahns became the norm; and the country slid into the nauseous and brutal civil wars of the 1990s, which engulfed us in Sierra Leone.   Now we now what path President Koroma has chosen for us to follow – development; unity; not ethnicity; not crude partisan politics – we are heartened, and we snuff a bit of our trepidation as we trudge towards ‘2012’.

In this Column, I have made it one of my mantras to be warning about what I term as the “Civil War Mentality”.  Now that President Koroma has made it quite clear that he is not a President for the APC alone (which could be read in the South-East as ‘not President for the North alone’) but President for all Sierra Leoneans, it would be certainly helpful for him to get frank views on the dynamics of the dangerous ‘Civil War Mentality’ that he could have, wittingly or unwittingly, helped to inflame.

What contributes to this ‘Civil War Mentality’? There is the highly visible and symbolic senior government positions – i.e. cabinet ministers; heads of parastatals; ambassadors; head of the military and police, etc.  How many citizens holding these top positions are from each of the two major regions (North/West and South/East) or ‘umbrella ethnic groups’ (Mende and Temne)?  Honest advisers of the President should do a breakdown of the composition of these positions.  Since there is now an avowed call for “unity”, one would expect that the President would give meaning to his call for “unity” in this area of our national life that he has complete prerogative over.  Then, the President should set up a Committee, or, a “Special Office for National Unity” that would strive to promote “unity” in all spheres of our national life.  In the public sector where nearly all white collared workers are employed, this ‘unity office’ should daily look at areas of disunity and neutralize them; and should open itself for complaints from aggrieved persons.

In most public sector offices, once a minister or director gets empowered by the President, he/she is likely to consolidate the process of that disunity which the President is warning about.  Most new jobs in such government Ministry, Department or Agency (MDA) would be given to the minister’s/director’s ethnic/regional group.  Consultancies, and contracts, in these MDAs, if not given to foreigners, would land on the laps of the ministers’/directors’ ethnic members.  Those bureaucrats who  the minister/director would meet in the MDA and who are not part of his ethnic/regional grouping are likely to be treated as if they are ‘enemies’ – frustrated; or, marginalized; or, treated with cold hostility.

There are many ways the ‘ethnic animosity’ is being fueled in the public sector.  The ‘enemy tribe/political party bureaucrats’, even if he were the head of department/unit, would not be given funds to undertake anything – rather, his/her subordinate, who belongs to the ‘right ethnic group/political party’, would get the funds.  When the ‘enemy tribe/political party bureaucrat’ performs excellently, it is hardly recognized by his superior; and almost never rewarded.  When the ‘enemy’ does something even slightly wrong, it is blown out of proportion.  Promotions, study leaves and foreign trips are almost never granted to the ‘enemy’ – but, to the ethnic/regional members of the minister/director.  So, Mr. President, the seeds of ethnic bitterness is being fertilized in the public sector even as you try to forge unity among  the 6 million people you lead.

The reality is that those among the ‘enemy tribes’ who are enduring such frustration and humiliation in the public sector are leaders among their own ethnic groups. In these days of the mobile phone, what they have to suffer in silence is being spread around the country every second. Hope is being lost in the system.  Most of these ‘ethnic victims’ don’t bother to complain – since they probably think there situation could be worsened if they complain; and there would never be any redress. That is why I call for an institutional channel to address this volatile issue of ethnic/regional grievances.  The President should not just stop on making  spasmodic pronouncements on unity. Indeed, because negative ethnicity, like corruption, is one of our worst forms of cancers in our body politic, there must be a structured national body (like the Anti Corruption Commission) to focus on negative tribalism and how to neutralize its force.

There is ‘positive ethnicity/regionalism’, of course – and this should be encouraged.  In fact, human beings cannot avoid ethnicity or ‘tribalism’.   Tribalism is as natural to human beings as eating, sleeping, having sex, etc. Human beings are social animals.  Being gregarious, we must live in groups that we have the greatest psychological comforts in.  What better group than with persons we share the same language and culture with; or we can dance to the same music with?  Tribalism has been part of the evolutionary process of man. In primitive days, it was easier for a tribe to move forward to conquer other tribes, or defend itself from attack from other tribe.  But, God has programme man to control aspects of his ‘nature’.

By nature, males among the human species can be as promiscuous as the dog.  But this human promiscuity can be controlled; and has been controlled – hence the dictates of religions like Christianity and Islam. God has endowed man with the mental capacity to control his baser impulses.  In Sierra Leone, tribal/ethnic politics could have capacitated one tribal group to grab power at the center – but, it is  irrational to allow such ethnic sentiments to be used to get the ‘enemy tribe’ to feel so fearful that they are scared to even speak their language in Freetown, and coalesce as one group because they feel their very tribal survival is being threatened.  While we fight our foolish ethnic fights (psychologically; politically; and administratively) we are making it easier for foreigners to continue the domination of our economy, further impoverishing our people – and endangering all the tribes of the two major regions who have to live together in this one tiny country.  As we march steadily towards celebrating our 50th Independence Anniversary in 2011, let us excise the cancerous cells of ‘disunity’ within our body politic; and let us nurture the many things that should unite us as a people – being led by President Koroma.  When the President says “We must be united” (and not, we ‘should’), there is an urgency, an imperative, in his language that should be highlighted, and elaborated on.

With limited number of Sierra Leonean engineers, doctors, agriculturists, computer experts, etc. in the country, we can hardly afford to live as a disunited people – or, we will be subjugated again by outsiders.  The best option for President Koroma’s developmental surge to have meaning is when all our citizenry, regardless of ethnic background, are energized to work as one people.

Oswald Hanciles, Freetown

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