By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
Author of “Monopoly of Happiness: Unveiling Sierra Leone’s Social Imbalance”
Recipient of the Africa Renaissance Leadership Award
Mr. President, here we are again. Another day, another disappointment. Another national embarrassment that leaves the average Sierra Leonean scratching their head, wondering what exactly went wrong with our leadership and how long we can continue on this dangerous path of self-inflicted wounds.
Mr. President, can we talk? I mean really talk. Not the rehearsed speeches or the usual choreographed meetings packed with praise singers and rented applause, but a raw, honest, and painful conversation between you and the people you swore to serve.
Let’s start with the latest shameful reality. Your Ministry of Health, the very institution tasked with safeguarding the well-being of a broken and battered nation, has reportedly spent three hundred thousand United States dollars—let me repeat, $300,000—just to host a health conference in Freetown. Mr. President, in a country where our hospitals don’t even have painkillers, where pregnant women are dying in labour because of lack of oxygen, gloves, or even running water, you and your government have the audacity to burn that kind of money for a conference? For what? To grandstand? To show off? To wear new suits and impress visitors? Or to pretend that we have a health system worth showcasing?
Mr. President, what kind of leadership is this? What kind of heart beats in your chest that you would prioritize ego over emergency, spectacle over substance, and foreign applause over the cries of your people?
Our healthcare system is a death trap. That’s not an exaggeration. That is a lived reality. From Kenema to Kambia, from Bonthe to Bombali, hospitals are operating in medieval conditions. No electricity, no running water, no medical equipment, and certainly no trained personnel motivated to stay because their salaries are pitiful. Yet here you are, splashing money like a lottery winner who doesn’t know that bankruptcy is just around the corner.
Mr. President, this is not leadership; it is public self-humiliation. You are undressing yourself and your government in broad daylight. And the whole world is watching.
Where are your priorities? Where is your shame? Sierra Leoneans are struggling to stay alive, and instead of investing in their survival, you’re throwing extravagant events to polish your image. Mr. President, that same amount, $300,000, could have refurbished at least ten primary health centers in the provinces. It could have stocked our rural clinics with medication for a year. It could have paid for scholarships for hundreds of nursing students. But you chose fanfare over function. And for what?
Mr. President, what kind of man are you? What spell are you under? “Ay bo, na do dem do you so?” Because the level of detachment and disregard you are displaying is hard to explain without invoking spiritual confusion.
Everything you touch, Mr. President, burns. The presidency has become a theater of incompetence. Every ministry you interfere with collapses under the weight of your poor judgment. You are the current Minister of Defense, are you not? Then please tell us, how is it that under your watch, Guinea has annexed part of our sovereign land, Yenga, and you do nothing? Not a word. Not a move. Just silence, as if our territorial integrity is negotiable.
What kind of defense minister allows a neighbouring country to occupy his soil and does not so much as raise a flag in protest?
And let’s not even start on the Ministry of Energy. What energy? We are plunged in darkness, both figuratively and literally. Businesses are dying because of poor electricity supply. Students can’t study. Hospitals can’t operate. The energy sector, too, under your influence, has burned to the ground.
Mr. President, are you cursed? Or are you just blind to the suffering around you? You need divine intervention. You need to fall to your knees and ask for forgiveness, not from your party, not from your political allies, but from the people whose lives you are destroying every day you remain in power.
And just when we thought it couldn’t get worse, your wife, the First Lady, proves once again that dignity has no place in your household. Mr. President, how do you feel when the mother of the nation, the symbol of womanhood in our Republic, stands in public and declares shamelessly that she walks around her house naked and that, fortunately, her neighbour is her husband?
Excuse my language, Mr. President, but what level of stupidity is this? How can the First Lady speak with such vulgarity? What message is she sending to our young girls? What kind of example is she setting for our children? There are staff in that house, family members, security officers, cooks, and drivers, and yet this is the level of decorum she deems acceptable?
You, sir, looked visibly uncomfortable in those videos. We saw your eyes. We saw your forced smile. We saw your silence, which screamed louder than any words. “Bra, you get wok oh.” You have a country in freefall, a health system collapsing, a youth population paralyzed by drugs, a security apparatus that is only brave when it is oppressing protesters but turns to jelly when it comes to defending our borders, and now, a First Lady who has turned your administration into a circus.
Mr. President, your house is on fire. And instead of grabbing a bucket of water, you’re spraying perfume to mask the smoke.
When will you wake up? When will you realize that leadership is not about appearances but about impact? Not about international conferences and photo ops, but about the lives of people who cannot even afford a tablet of paracetamol?
You are leading a nation spiraling into abject poverty, drug addiction, and institutional collapse. You are surrounded by corrupt politicians, drug lords, and cowardly enforcers, none of whom care about the legacy you leave behind. They are enriching themselves today, while your name is being written in the sand as one of the worst leaders this country has ever had.
If your conscience is not dead, Mr. President, it should at least be on life support.
Yenga is gone. Our economy is gone. Our dignity is gone. And soon, our future may go too, unless you take urgent, radical action.
Start by cancelling these extravagant events. Start by investing in hospitals, schools, and job creation. Start by speaking truth to your own wife, and stop pretending all is well when the roof is collapsing. Start by listening to the people, not silencing them.
Sierra Leoneans deserve better. We are a small country with a big heart. We have suffered long enough. Stop adding to the pain.
Until then, Mr. President, the question remains:
Can we really talk, or are you just pretending to listen?
