By Alpha Amadu Jalloh, author of “Monopoly of Happiness: Unveiling Sierra Leone’s Social Imbalance,” winner of the Africa Renaissance Leadership Award 2025.
Mr. President, good afternoon to you in Rome. I trust you are having a pleasant stay, as usual, traveling while the rest of us back home are left gasping for air under the weight of your failed leadership. Mr. President, I believe by now you have been informed of the laurels I recently brought to Sierra Leone. Yes, I was awarded the Africa Renaissance Leadership Award 2025.
Mr. President, I am sure you know I did not pay for mine; I was not lobbying for it; I did not even dream of it. Out of the blue, the call came, and just like that, “BOOM na Wap ar Wap am so!” Mr. President, genuine recognition comes naturally when one serves people honestly and not through PR gimmicks or diplomatic lobbying.
But Mr. President, let us come back to the matter at hand. Let us talk seriously about the 64th Independence Anniversary of our dear Sierra Leone. Mr. President, may I ask you, are you really a Catholic? Because your sudden decision to jump again onto a plane to Rome, this time for the Pope’s funeral, while your country is on the brink, raises serious questions.
Now, Mr. President, with all due respect, at a time like this, you should be home warming up the spirit of the people, preparing the nation for our Independence celebration. You should be moving from district to district, visiting hospitals, orphanages, and prisons; encouraging the people; forgiving minor offenders; showing mercy; spreading hope; and rallying the citizens around the flag. Instead, you abandon the ship to attend a funeral abroad. Mr. President, you don’t even seem to have the basic respect for our national flag or the emotions of our suffering people.
Mr. President, if you were truly sensitive to the moment, you would have stayed. You would have sent our archbishop to represent Sierra Leone in Rome, a fitting, diplomatic, and cost-effective move. But no, you chose the glamour of international travel over the somber duty of national stewardship. “Bra wi ol kno sae yu nor bête Catholic,” even the old folks know your so-called Catholic devotion is not deep enough to warrant this kind of reckless behavior.
Mr. President, what exactly are we celebrating this Independence Day? When has our National Revenue Authority (NRA) locked up the offices of our national power authority (EDSA) for tax evasion, and vice versa? When government departments themselves are so broke and dysfunctional that they owe each other taxes? What kind of national embarrassment is this?
Under your leadership, Mr. President, we should not be celebrating. We should be mourning. We should be crying. We should be on our knees, praying for redemption and a total change in the way you govern us.
Mr. President, nothing , absolutely nothing, is functioning properly under your leadership. We are suffering in ways we have not experienced for decades. There is no water in the taps. Electricity is rationed to the point that it has become a luxury. Food prices have skyrocketed beyond the reach of ordinary families. Women and children are starving every day. Hospitals are like death traps, schools are collapsing, and civil servants go unpaid for months.
Everything is going bad, every minute, every second, under your watch. Yet here you are, gallivanting around the world while the house you were elected to manage is burning down.
Mr. President, you promised us a “New Direction,” but today, Sierra Leone is in a dangerous freefall, a “Wrong Direction” worse than the past. You have abandoned governance for international showmanship, awarded yourself and your wife countless meaningless honors, all while the people you swore to protect are perishing.
Mr. President, how can you call yourself a leader of Sierra Leone when the very agencies tasked with collecting taxes and providing light to the people are collapsing under your nose? How can you celebrate independence when independence itself has lost all meaning to the common man?
Mr. President, even the Pope you are rushing to bury stood for humility, compassion, and service to humanity. What are you standing for? Excess, arrogance, and abandonment of duty. Leadership is not about attending burials abroad while your citizens cannot afford a proper burial for their own dead due to poverty and hardship.
You should have stayed. You should have walked the streets of Freetown. You should have sat with the market women who are losing their small businesses to inflation. You should have listened to the cries of our nurses, our teachers, and our soldiers, who are disillusioned beyond words. That is why a president who loves his country does not fly away at every given opportunity.
Mr. President, Sierra Leone needs healing, not more international photo-ops. We need real leadership, not ceremonial visits. We need answers to the daily pains we endure, not more excuses and distractions.
What kind of independence are we celebrating when over 80% of our youth are unemployed? What kind of independence are we celebrating when the few jobs available are handed out based on political loyalty rather than merit? What kind of independence are we celebrating when the streets of our capital city are flooded every rainy season because your government cannot even manage simple drainage?
Mr. President, every Independence Day under your leadership feels like a mockery of our founding fathers’ dreams. When Sir Milton Margai and his contemporaries fought for our freedom, they envisioned a Sierra Leone where dignity, service, and hope would prevail. Today, those ideals are dead, buried under the rubble of corruption, incompetence, and mismanagement.
The Independence celebrations should have been a time to reflect soberly on these failures. Instead, you turned it into another opportunity to dodge responsibility. Another opportunity to jet away and pretend all is well.
Mr. President, I urge you: return home. Come back to the people you were elected to serve. Face us. Talk to us. Listen to us. Mourn with us. Pray with us. Lead us, if you still can.
There is no honor in abandoning your people during critical moments. There is no glory in presiding over a nation in ruins while pretending abroad that all is fine.
We are tired, Mr. President. Tired of empty speeches. Tired of broken promises. Tired of seeing leaders live lavishly while the masses live miserably. Tired of celebrating independence without true freedom—freedom from poverty, freedom from corruption, and freedom from suffering.
Mr. President, if you love Sierra Leone as you often claim, now is the time to prove it. Not by attending funerals overseas. Not by chasing international awards. But by getting your hands dirty right here at home, solving problems, alleviating suffering, and restoring hope.
Mr. President, we deserve better. Sierra Leone deserves better.
As we mark this hollow 64th Independence, I can only say, Happy Independence to a bleeding nation. Happy Independence to a betrayed people. Happy Independence to a leadership that has lost its way. May God save Sierra Leone.
