On February 14, 1972, miners in Koidu unearthed a miracle: a 968.9 carat diamond named the Star of Sierra Leone. It was meant to be a blessing, a symbol of buried treasure. Yet, like almost everything of value in our country, that blessing curdled like stale baby pap.
Fifty-four years later, Sierra Leone is starring in another world record. In recent weeks, Spanish authorities reportedly intercepted a cargo ship off Western Sahara. The vessel had allegedly departed from Freetown days earlier, carrying an estimated 40 tons of cocaine, one of the largest seizures in history. The curse has merely changed its chemical formula. Diamonds to cocaine powder.
The seizure is not isolated. In November 2025, Nigerian customs intercepted over 1,000 kilograms of cocaine at Lagos Port. That container also allegedly arrived from Freetown, loaded with no consignee and no documentation, like a ghost ship.
For the average Sierra Leonean, the 40 tons offer no blessing, only vice. When the diamond was mined, they saw violence. When a cocaine ship docks, they see the same.
In the wake of the cocaine seizure crisis, our Government has yet again, kept muted silence like an abandoned graveyard. Or, as we would say in law, ‘neither admit nor deny’ the allegations.
On the international front, I doubt whether the British or the European Union will confront the ECOWAS Chair, on the matter. The “Star of Sierra Leone” is no longer a diamond but cocaine. It is the crab louse on Sierra Leone’s back.
Our geographic blessing has become the curse of international stigma. We risk graduating from a post conflict state to a full blown narco state, shining only in the darkness of the global drug trade.