‘Ernest’s’ No 1 Priority – Youth!!!- and the ‘Fallamakata’ Cure

The President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, H.E. Ernest Bai Koroma, publicly pronounced during the campaign period for the 2012 General Elections, and was emphatic during his speech on being inaugurated for his Second Term in office in 2013, that youth are his No 1 Priority.

I have been close with youth of this country since I returned home from Nigeria in 1995. In the year 2000, I was one of the co-founders, and have been the principal sponsor, of the youth group, Youth Arise!!! It is a professional (and societal) survival logic to be close to youth and talk with them and listen to them – if you are mainly in communications or in politics. (Or, if you are not amnesiac, the most gruesome atrocities during our ten years ‘rebel war’ were committed by mainly drug-induced gun-toting and axe-wielding children and youth combatants!!).

The youth comprise about 60 percent of the population of Sierra Leone. No one acquires political power in Sierra Leone without the significant support of the youth. The President is manifesting political savvy in putting ‘youth’ at the top of his priorities. However, in interacting with youth today after last year’s elections, I have this uneasy feeling that the President’s avowed stance on youth – theoretically enhanced because of the establishment by this APC government of the National Youth Commission, and an exclusive youth ministry – has not adequately energized the youth themselves, and there could be, for the APC, a dangerous disillusionment brewing among too many of the youth, given the high expectation the youth had in 2012 of the APC presidential candidate they dubbed ‘World Best’.

“Ernest…Nar World Best, O….Salone Messiah…”

As the campaigning heated up last year, Charles Ostrov’s Studio J’s Alfred Tucker and my humble self were out on the streets around the country with a high quality video camera…rolling. The energy of the red-clad APC male and female youth as they danced and romped and sang lustily on the streets of Freetown, their ululation that bordered on worshiping President Koroma like some god, was infectiously thrilling!! The thousands of APC-red bedecked okada riders all over the peninsular of Freetown, and in Makeni and Magburaka and Koidu and Kailahun Town and Kenema Town…. wheezing in and out of traffic and pedestrians in berserk joy, doing all sorts of dangerous stunts in jubilation over their ‘World Best’….; their excitable chanting of the hit song with lyrics that goes ‘Ernest nar world best…!!! O…Salone Messiah…O…!!.’. I have video footage in my archive showing how European Union observers in their blue waist coats and baseball caps looked on with awestruck faces by the enthusiasm that President Koroma generated. The palpable energy the youth put behind their votes for the ‘Ernest…World Best….’ (including millions more children and youth who were not of voting age, but, would also teem rallies in a rapturous show of ‘people’s power’) if it were harnessed would have generated electricity in Freetown for ten years straight. Talking to youth generally in Freetown today, I sense that that the groundswell of youth support for President Koroma has been largely (is being!!) frittered away….

Take care in project-alizing and institutionalizing ‘youth business’

The President, and the entire APC, have to reflect deeply on what were the EXPECTATIONS of the youth generally when they voted ‘4-4-4’ for the APC in 2012 – and then go on a systematic survey on what the youth today, especially in Freetown, think of the political class, particularly the APC. . The governing party should do a double take in thinking that the institutions they have set up that are ‘talking down to youth’ have credence in the eyes of youth. Or, they are having much impact in proportion to the magnitude of the youth problem. My experience in the ‘youth business’ makes me queasy about the approach of ‘project-alizing’ or institutionalizing issues that concern ‘youth’. Youth are just part of the citizenry between 15 and 35 years of age. Every facet of society touches directly or indirectly on youth.

Every ministry, department, or agency of government; every loan or investment, every foreign travel of the President; every civil society activity; every church or mosque…every football tournament or athletic meet… has to have a youth component. What does the foreign ministry has for youth? How does the revenue agency affect youth? What is in the finance ministry for youth? How does what is done in parliament affect youth? I hazard a single potent part solution here in a concept which I am developing: ‘Fallamakata’.

Oswald Hanciles

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