Sierra Leoneans are prisoners of conscience. Conscience is your sense of right and wrong, your principles or ethics. It is common for a Sierra Leonean to know the truth yet, for fear of, say, losing something dear they end up either keeping silent or telling an agreed upon lie, making that person complicit in the whole affair.
To maintain their treasured and hard won positions in a country of unemployed fellow citizens, they will keep quiet and watch a wrong being perpetrated. This has made us sycophants whose integrity can be bought for a pittance.
For a very long time now, the people have had a hard time admitting and accepting this fact. This state of sycophancy is so rife that it is hard to take anybody serious in this country. This has also rendered us prisoners of conscience. This is a country where almost everything has a price, even life. Yes, for a small price you can have someone you hate done in by a traditional doctor or you can have him or her arrested and locked up without a charge, “just for show am”.
Because of our widespread poverty opportunities are hard to come by so we mortgage the nation, the company’s, and our relationships’ future by our selfish and unethical actions. When put in positions of trust such people do what they are told as opposed to what is right or according to best practice.
The average Sierra Leonean would see and know the truth, but yet look or step aside and allow the wrong to prevail. Lying has become so rampant it is now a way of life. For reasons that the average man would consider negligible, Sierra Leoneans would say anything, if the price or favour is right. We will lie with a straight face, especially for a gift or favour. We have become a country of favours where everyone is beholden to someone that did something for them for whom they are prepared to lie for. If that person does wrong he or she is either encouraged or aided and abetted in getting it done. If that person is wrong, because of the favours they do us or their position, class or other such things we overlook them, and miss out on telling them the truth to save theirs and our lives.
This way of life is more evident in our leadership class, who for reasons of personal interest would sit and watch a wrong being committed. It is not hard for such leaders to be put in positions just for their concurrence on issues of import to the person that put them in that position. Such men and women would go against their conscience and turn a blind eye to wrongs, going as far as preventing others from saying the truth.
It is not uncommon to hear a Sierra Leonean saying, “Nor say so; nor talk so nay a. Lef dis talk”, all in an effort to keep you from speaking your mind or exposing an issue. This has put price to truth in Sierra Leone and render it under serious assault as the truth gets compromised easily and for the most mundane things or reasons.
For example we have two currencies in circulation at present in Sierra Leone. Compounding that we have a disclosure by the Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone that the country had an unexplained loss of Le800 billion (he didn’t specify whether this was in the old or new currency) that would appear to have miraculously walked out of the bank’s vault. Isn’t there anyone at the bank or in government that can school the Governor on the corruption inherent in having two currencies operating in a single economy?
It should not be easy to convince the average Sierra Leonean that money had and still has everything to do with the contract to print our national passport being given to a foreigner and to have its price fixed at $100. Both situations are a threat to the peace and security of the state. Do you know how many people of unsavoury characters would wish to get their hands on other nations’ passports to carry out their dastardly affairs? Is it safe for the price of the passport to be going up whenever the dollar gains against the weak leone, which seems to be on a daily basis?
According to one researcher, the overwhelming majority of political or opinion or thought leaders in Sierra Leone are prisoners of conscience. The figure is even higher when ministers and other civil servants are counted considering all the available appointed positions in a nation’s government.
A simple look at the cases resulting from the White Paper of the defunct Commissions of Inquiry would show that it is against sound teaching as the next government will be expected do the same to the ruling government officials, making ours a government of retribution.
Every day across the country we assault and kill desperate young men and women for stealing a phone or Le5, we accuse poorly dressed people of being thieves simply for how they look, yet when we hear of how our elected and other leaders and people in positions of trust had stolen from us or that they steal from us regularly, we downplay such disclosures of malpractice, going as far as speaking up for or defending the accused, even when we know they had done as accused.
We blame others for what they didn’t do, blaming others for what we did. We would blame someone for assaulting them instead of admitting we have a problem with controlling our temper, and our hands. We blame politicians for what we allow them to do to us, for which we should be blaming ourselves.
Insulting our mothers or women has become vogue. It is socially acceptable for a grown man or woman, even the young, to swear, curse or use motherly invectives in public with no one openly saying this is bad or wrong behaviour. What did our women, our grandmothers, mothers, wives, sisters, nieces, aunts and girlfriends ever do to us to be subjected to what has now become like a national anthem.(Saccoh Lewis).
We see or hear the young assaulting or being rude to an elderly person only to end up supporting the youngster and sanctioning the older person. Mothers and other parents or guardians, even community people would stand by and allow their children to insult people older than both of them. It no longer “takes a village to raise a child” in Sierra Leone. Insulting women is a sickness in our society as politicians, disciples on their way to and from, even at worship halls, recording artists of both sex, even Adebayor insult our presidents’ and other national elders’ mothers to the amusement of his fans and listeners.
These and many such other things we allow happening, all in the name of saving face and maintaining the status quo.
The time has come for us to pick up character and start telling and speaking the truth as a people or else political and other manipulations will never end, and we will never get to hear or believe the truth about anything, since we will know that almost everyone is on the take in Sierra Leone, and their allegiance can be bought for a price or favour.
We need to hear the truth in Parliament, State House, in the courts, City Councils, schools, churches, homes, communities and indeed across the country.
God is truth and anything other than the truth is of the devil hence a lie. Speak the truth, even and especially when it hurts.
This is what it will take for us to get rid of all vices from our national and personal spaces. It’s either this or we will always believe in a lie, even when we know it is a lie, just as long as the price is right, ‘or it’s what my boss, party, tribe or friend wants or expects of me’.