By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
Mr. President, do you want to tell the people what is really going on? . We have watched you with bated breath, hoping for a word, a gesture, anything that would show you feel the pain of your people. But instead, there has been deafening silence. It is a silence so loud that it has become a national alarm. Every time a house burns in this country, whether in Freetown, Kenema, Bo, or Makeni, we wait for the state to intervene. We wait for EDSA, the Energy Distribution and Supply Authority, to be held accountable. We wait for justice. But what we get is nothing. Absolute nothingness.
Mr. President, sir, since the beginning of this year, homes have been reduced to ashes. Lives have been upended. Mothers have cried, fathers have mourned, and children have stood helplessly watching their future go up in flames, all because of what many believe is a reckless and erratic electricity supply. Power surges and fluctuations, faulty installations, and outdated transformers are all known triggers of the fires that have haunted Sierra Leoneans across the country. But yet, no investigation. No commission of inquiry. No national address. No support for the victims. Just silence.
Mr. President, the buck stops at your doorstep. Now, with the burning of a part of the State House itself, the very symbol of governance and security in Sierra Leone, your silence has come full circle. The irony is chilling. That the institution you lead, the structure that represents the power of the Republic, has now felt the same heat and destruction that the common man has been feeling for months. And still, instead of clarity, what we’re getting is spin.
There’s a debate going around about which office in the State House was burned, whether it was your office or not, and whether the damage was minimal or significant. Mr. President, with all due respect, does that really matter now? What matters is that a national crisis, EDSA’s incompetence, has reached the highest office in the land. And even now, we’re seeing attempts to deceive the people yet again, to tell us “all is well” when all is clearly not well.
We see the press releases, carefully worded to downplay the damage. We hear the media handlers deflecting, as if pretending can reverse reality. But Mr. President, this is not a time for cosmetics or spin. This is a time for truth. This is a time for leadership.
Mr. President, the people are tired. Sierra Leoneans are tired of waking up to the smell of smoke, to the sound of crackling flames eating their possessions. They are tired of burying their hopes in the ashes of what used to be their homes. EDSA has become a threat to national safety, a ticking time bomb in every household. No one is safe, not even you.
Yet, Mr. President, there is no redress. No legal mechanism or effective public office exists to challenge EDSA. The average Sierra Leonean has no voice in the matter. They cannot take EDSA to court. They cannot demand compensation for their losses. They cannot even question a system that has robbed them, repeatedly, of peace, of sleep, and of safety.
Had this happened in any Western country, Mr. President, EDSA would be on its knees. The lawsuits alone would bring it to liquidation. The damages would bankrupt it. The regulatory agencies would launch independent probes. Leaders would address their nations,
Mr. President, accept responsibility and take action. But here, in Sierra Leone, EDSA continues business as usual, untouchable, unaccountable, and now, utterly dangerous.
Why has no minister resigned? Why has there been no national day of mourning for the dozens of homes lost this year? Why has Parliament not debated emergency measures to address power fluctuations? Why has there been no audit of EDSA’s infrastructure, no overhaul of their archaic systems, and no reform of the regulatory framework governing electricity supply?
We are dealing with more than just faulty power. We are dealing with a system that prioritizes excuses over solutions, spin over transparency, and silence over leadership.
Mr. President, allow me to remind you: these are not just statistics. These are people’s lives. These are human beings, your citizens, who are doing their best to survive in an economy already squeezed to its limit. Losing the little they have built to fire is not just a loss of property; it’s a loss of dignity. And your silence only adds insult to injury.
You are not just the president of the State House. You are the president of every shack in Kroo Bay, every two-bedroom flat in Kenema, every unfinished building in Bo, and every wooden kiosk in Makeni. When they burn, you burn. When they mourn, you should mourn. When they scream, your duty is to answer.
But you’ve been away, as usual. Jetting across the world while the country burns. Attending conferences and posing for photos while your people search through rubble. Mr. President, leadership is not only about international recognition and foreign awards. It is also about accountability at home. It is about standing with your people in their worst moments, not just in their triumphs.
The burning of the State House should be a wake-up call. But will you wake up, Mr. President? Will you, for once, return and speak to your people with sincerity? Will you admit the failures, demand accountability from EDSA, compensate the victims, and launch a nationwide safety review of the electricity system? Or will you, like so many times before, brush this aside, hoping the people forget?
Mr. President, this is a plea, not an attack. A desperate call for leadership. A cry from the ashes. You still have a chance to act. To change the narrative. To prevent the next tragedy. But if you continue with silence, the people will remember. They will remember that when their homes burned, you said nothing. They will remember that when the State House caught fire, you downplayed it. And they will remember that when the country needed leadership the most, you were absent.
And Mr. President, tomorrow I will raise another issue. Since you are away and have taken the people for granted, I will wait till tomorrow, Insha Allahu. But know this: our patience is not infinite. And neither is your term in office. The people are watching.
