By Alpha Amadu Jalloh.
Author of Monopoly of Happiness: Unveiling Sierra Leone’s Social Imbalance
Recipient of the Africa Renaissance Leadership Award
Mr. President, can we talk?
Yesterday brought a flood of headlines, but one stood out not because of its novelty, but because of the irony it exposed. The Sierra Leone Red Cross Society has entered into a fifteen-year cooperation agreement with the Iranian Red Crescent Society to improve treatment and rehabilitation services in our country. While this development is being celebrated in diplomatic circles, it underscores something painful and undeniable. Mr. President, Sierra Leone is still struggling to provide the most basic medical care to its people. And now, we must look to Iran, a nation half a world away, to patch up the holes we have refused to mend ourselves.
Mr. President, we are not against cooperation or international partnerships. But we are deeply disturbed that, decades after independence and years into your administration, our country still cannot stand on its own when it comes to treating the sick and caring for the vulnerable. What message are we sending to the world? That a nation blessed with fertile soil, intelligent youth, and abundant mineral resources cannot guarantee the dignity of a proper hospital bed or a functioning clinic?
This health partnership comes at a time when our country is being ravaged by monkeypox, a disease that continues to spread with alarming speed. As of this week, we are facing more than three thousand four hundred confirmed cases with over seventeen deaths. The Ministry of Health and Sanitation has rolled out sensitization campaigns, but anyone on the ground knows these are mere press release strategies rather than comprehensive response plans. Clinics are understocked. Healthcare workers are overburdened. Communities are left to manage on their own, praying that they do not become the next victim statistics.
Mr. President, this was the same attitude during Ebola. This was the same complacency during COVID-19. We wait. We deny. We downplay. And when the situation explodes, we rush to donors, sign agreements, and celebrate foreign help as though it were development. What happened to local ownership? What happened to building a resilient health system from the ground up?
Mr. President, if that were not enough, the country is facing another health emergency, one that is slowly consuming the future of our youth. The rise of synthetic drugs like “kush,” especially those laced with deadly opioids such as nitazenes, is turning our communities into morgues in waiting. Teenagers are slumped on sidewalks. Young men and women are hallucinating in public spaces. Entire neighborhoods are witnessing a collapse of order, ambition, and life. You declared a war on Kush. But a war requires a plan, an army, a vision, and measurable outcomes. Where are the rehabilitation centers? Where is the drug education in our schools? Where are the national helplines? Where is the community support?
Mr. President, if we are losing both to disease and drugs, what future do we really have? A sick nation cannot rise. A drugged population cannot lead. And a government that cannot treat illness or fight addiction is a government that has lost the moral authority to speak of development.
While all this is happening, Mr. President, our young people are taking steps you should be taking. Just yesterday, twenty-four passionate youth leaders from Sierra Leone and Liberia gathered for the YOCEL workshop on advancing youth rights and livelihoods. They met to discuss the challenges they face, to propose solutions, and to build bridges across borders. These are young people doing what governments have failed to do. And they are doing it without access to national funds, without cabinet positions, and without motorcades.
Mr. President, the future of this country lies in its young people. But you are failing them. You are not investing in them. You are not listening to them. You are not empowering them. Every year we produce graduates who are left to roam the streets, sell sachet water, or fall into the trap of drug lords. Every year we build universities without building the industries to absorb their output. Every year we talk about skills development but offer no tools, no capital, no access, and no markets.
Mr. President, let us look at something else that made headlines yesterday. Your government is embarking on the creation of new districts. This might sound like decentralization on the surface. But in truth, many believe it is another political strategy meant to divide, manipulate, and mismanage. We already have districts that are underfunded. Districts without doctors. Districts without secondary schools. Districts where people drink from the same streams as animals. And now we want more of them?
Mr. President, expanding the administrative map of Sierra Leone will not solve our problems if you do not expand the justice in resource distribution. Governance is not about drawing new boundaries. It is about delivering services across the ones that already exist. What we need is not new names. What we need is new accountability, new infrastructure, new water systems, new roads, new clinics, and new jobs.
Mr. President, every time you add more government structures without fixing the old ones, you increase the burden on taxpayers and increase the space for corruption. It is like building new churches while the Bible remains unread. It is form without substance. Expansion without foundation.
Let us also not forget the deepening cost of living crisis. The prices of essential goods continue to rise. Bread, rice, cooking oil, transport fares, and even water have become luxuries in many households. While Statistics Sierra Leone is celebrating the country being a single-digit inflation economy, the reality on the ground is that people are eating less, spending more, and suffering daily. We are not impressed by cooked numbers. We are hungry for real change.
Mr. President, there is a disconnect between your government and the lived experiences of your citizens. While ministers travel in convoys and appear in press conferences with glossy reports, the ordinary man is queuing for water, begging for medical care, and hustling for a single meal.
We are tired of the blame games. Tired of the excuses. Tired of the international handshakes that yield no tangible progress. Sierra Leoneans are not asking for luxuries. We are asking for water in our taps. Medicine in our clinics. Jobs for our youth. Security in our communities. And dignity in our lives.
Mr. President, yesterday’s headlines should have inspired a moment of reflection. A moment to ask, where are we headed? Are we building a Sierra Leone that works for the many or for the few? Are we building a state that responds to pain or one that manufactures propaganda?
It is not too late to act. But action must begin with honesty. With a diagnosis of where we are. And with the courage to admit that we have failed in many areas. That is how true healing begins.
Mr. President, can we talk?
