Political analysts and commentators have always argued that high degree of hustling in the management of state resources is constantly taking Sierra Leone backwards. The hustling takes the form of grand-scale corruption in which leaders seek to amass wealth at the detriment of the people.
The masses have always been at the wrong end of the hustling making for frequent changes of governments, thinking it is the solution to the country’s problems. Libya had one government with one leader, Muammar Gaddafi for over four decades, but she remained a prosperous and stable nation not until the Arab Spring of 2011 swept him away.
Gaddafi’s case makes a strong case for the indefinite retention of governments as long as they build nations for their citizens. Chinese President has been made President for life as well as his Russian and Rwandan counterparts owing to national development. It lends credence to the maxim that as long as governments remain responsive to the development aspirations of the people, there is no need for rampant changes.
Sierra Leone is among few West African nations that have witnessed persistent looting and plunder of state resources by politicians who have left the country to its present state. Sierra Leone, political historians say, is a country that has been abandoned to its fate, rot and political decay.
Performing artists in their musical lyrics have bluntly spoken about the unsatisfactory direction the country has been moving in the disposal and management of state assets. In the vociferous and ferocious fight against corruption, Emmerson Bockarie deserves a particular mention.
Bockarie is one of Sierra Leonean’s eminent artists that has successfully used music to expose the vice of corruption in the country. Sierra Leone is one among many African nations that have seen corrupt politicians whose rapacious tendencies have today put the country in its current miserable state.
Sierra Leone, since independence, has seen governments that have taken corruption as a way of life thus creating permanent hardship for the suffering masses. Sierra Leone’s The Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) Report of 2002 identified corruption as one of the main causes of the decade long-civil war.
The TRC Report says the high prevalence rate of corruption transformed once peaceful and hopeful youths into violent and hopeless ones.
As corruption continues to take foothold in the country, the report says, the youths lost all hope in successive governments and in the future owing to large-scale corruption. The youths became dissatisfied with the governing authorities and they became easy prey for unscrupulous men who exploited their dissatisfaction to take up arms.
The war was fought and was dubbed as the bloodiest guerilla warfares on the continent. The atrocities and heinous crimes committed compelled the intervention of the international community to bring peace to a once war-torn nation. Peace came and reigned through the concerted effort of Sierra Leonean stakeholders and key players of the international community.
The immediate period that marked the end of the war was accompanied by many tangible reforms that cut across several sectors including politics, security, governance, and economics among others. Most Sierra Leoneans believe that the reforms recommended by the international community became enviable legacies the country should have capitalised on should it have corrupt-free governments.
The army and the police were reformed, governance institutions overhauled, and other sectors too reoriented for a stable and prosperous Sierra Leone. These reforms today are all but name; they have been trampled in the dust of history through corruption and bad governance. Political analysts have argued that had Sierra Leone consolidated the legacies received from the international community, the country would have once more regained its former glorious and enviable status in Sub-saharan Africa.
National history has taught us that Sierra Leone is the only African country in the 19th century that played host to Ghanians, Nigerians, Gambians, Liberians and other African countries to drink deep from the well of knowledge.
But, the country’s inability to navigate well in the path of probity in public life has again cost her another enviable stake in the community of nations. Sierra Leone has not trodden on the path of Rwanda, an African country that emerged from a horrific genocide in 1994.
Rwanda saw sad history in the mid 90’s. The country saw a genocide that was tragic in nature and devastating in consequence as it claimed the lives of over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, two of the major tribes in Rwanda.
After the genocide, questions came up about the neglect shown by the international community that led to the outbreak of the genocide. Where was the United Nations was at a time the conflict was about to break out? This question did not only sound a critical moment for the UN but also prompted the agency to embark on radical reforms in Rwanda.
Rwanda capitalised on the UN reforms yesterday, and she is making one of the greatest success stories on the continent today. Rwanda is today on the threshold of an industrialised nation with a markedly improved living standards for her citizens. Records seen by this press show that the country’s development trajectory has effaced genocidal vestiges in the minds of Rwandese.
Sierra Leone, owing to corruption, has also considerably lagged behind other Asian Countries like Singapore and Malasia with which she gained independence on the same period. Today, one can easily mistake Singapore and Malasia for the United States owing to development strides the two countries have been pursuing over the years.
Annual reports released by the global corruption watchdog, Transparency International (TI) has always pointed out instances showing that corruption is still prevalent in Sierra Leone. As politicians loot, civil and public servants too indulge in the loot most times in the form of petty bribes.
It goes without saying that since integrity is absent at the top, one hardly expects it at the bottom. In 2013, A TI report singled out Sierra Leone as a country where bribery is most rampant. The Sierra Leone Police, the Judiciary, Ministries of Health, Education and other government agencies have been indicted as places where rampant petty bribes have taken place.
Government, at that time, responded immediately to the report through the launching of the Pay No Bribe Campaign (PNB). To actualise and strengthen the campaign, Integrity Management Committees (IMC’s) were established in various Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government.
The IMC’s aim is to ensure that workers in a particular agency comply with ethical and professional standards with the overall aim of building a culture of probity and respect for state assets.
On Several occasions, Sierra Leone’s agency against graft, the Anti-Corruption Commission has raised the necessary awareness and the tremendous benefits in doing what is right in public institutions. ACC is of the view that quality service delivery is assured to all Sierra Leoneans only if civil servants turn their backs against corruption.
A tripartite approach commonly known as the three P’s meaning Prevention, Public Education and prosecution was adopted. Prevention is about systems review for all MDA’s; Public education is about raising awareness on corruption and prosecution means arraigning an accused person before the courts.
Despite messages of avoidance of corruption in public life, Corruption still continues to pose a threat to national security and development. Evidence of corruption in public life was made visible when ACC Crack Squad descended on three traffic police officers at a checkpoint in Tinkokor Town in Bo district.
Investigation on the police officers was mounted by the ACC resulting into the suspension and dismissal of the police officers. The effective campaign against graft in Sierra Leone traced its origin to the formation of ACC between 2000/2001 with Professor Joko Smart as the first Anti-Corruption Commissioner.
The ACC’s role at that formative period was to lay the foundation for a stronger and robust fight against corruption in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone, indeed has come a long way, in the campaign against corruption, the country has seen so much but much has to be done if the country must rise from the doldrums of corruption, poverty and underdevelopment.
Popular anti-corruption speeches have been made by political leaders and other anti-corruption campaigners making a strong case as to why corruption should be avoided. In most of his appearances, former President Koroma has repeatedly warned his fellow compatriots not to see corruption as a path to success.
In the early years of his Presidency, former President Koroma was in a convocation ceremony at Fourah Bay College, in the University of Sierra Leone where he warned graduating students not to indulge in corruption when they enter public life. The former President made it clear that Sierra Leone has one of the strongest corruption laws on the continent, and there is no sacred cow.
The fight against corruption is one of the key flagship projects of the ‘New Direction’ Government as it believes that corruption tremendously undermines good governance and national development.
Solomon Berewa of blessed memories has once commented that the tendency to be corrupt is in inherent in every human being arguing that only the full force of the law can deter them. The internationally acclaimed lead anti-corruption campaigner in Africa Professor PLO Lumumba has made very strong arguments for the avoidance of corruption.
Prof. Lumumba has constantly argued that Africa would hardly realise its potentials if the right leaders are not brought into the fold of politics. In 2018, the continent’s lead anti-corruption campaigner was in Sierra Leone to continue to preach messages of probity in public life.
He called on state authorities to hold accountable those whose hands have been on the loot. In 2002, Late Professor Pemagbi, Sierra Leone’s former Chairman of the National Commission for Democracy and Human Rights and later the country’s permanent representative to the United Nations has urged citizens of Sierra Leone to avoid and report all forms of corruption for a better Sierra Leone.
He made the call in a conference held at the Pastoral Centre in the Southern Headquaters of Bo on the theme: ‘Social Reintegration of Ex-Child Combatants in Sierra Leone.’
Sierra Leone’s politicians have not heeded to the call as the loot in public life still continues. The ACC is overwhelmed with a lot of corruption matters which it found extremely difficult to investigate and prosecute. Political analysts once more remind Sierra Leoneans that until Sierra Leone gets the right leaders, it will hardly record success stories like Rwanda, Singapore, Malasia, the list continues.