By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
Sierra Leone is dying slowly, not from a single bullet, flood or epidemic, but from a rot that began at the apex of the state and trickled through every ministry, office, boardroom and newsroom. To stand idle while power is prostituted for profit, while public duty is bartered for passports and patronage, is not neutrality. It is complicity. A sacrifice for our country is not a favour. It is a duty owed to our children, to our future, and those who refuse that duty are not merely failing us; they are stealing from us every day.
| “Sovereignty belongs to the people of Sierra Leone from whom Government through this Constitution derives all its powers, authority and legitimacy.”
| Constitution of Sierra Leone
The Constitution of this country is not a polite suggestion. It declares that the security, peace and welfare of the people of Sierra Leone shall be the primary purpose and responsibility of Government. These are not comfortable lines to be waved aside when they inconvenience a minister, a contractor, or a media house chasing headlines for cash. They are obligations, legal, moral and inescapable.
Yet what do we see? A Presidency that treats the public purse as a private till, ministries that function as emporia for cronies, security services whose loyalty bends toward faction not country, and a bureaucracy that has forgotten its oath. Where once civil servants signed the declaration of compliance vowing to support and uphold the Constitution and do right to all manner of people without fear or favour, too many now view public office as a ticket to accumulate wealth and immunity.
We are ruled, increasingly, by the theatre of governance. Ceremonies of pomp are trotted out to mask a disastrous truth. Infrastructure projects are left half finished, health systems remain fragile, schools are empty of proper resources, and the economy that should empower households is engineered to service luxury and graft. Business leaders who should be engines of national development too often play both sides, greasing the wheels of politicians while denying decent jobs and fair competition to others. Media houses, whose role is to shine a light, have sometimes sold that light for advertising and access. When a newsroom’s independence is bartered, the people lose their mirror and are presented instead with flattering distortions.
There are those who will say that this is partisan bile, that criticism of leaders is a calculated campaign. Fine. Call it partisanship if you like, but show me the families whose bills went unpaid, the farmers whose roads are impassable, the mothers who lost children for want of a functioning hospital and I will call that reality, not politics. When leaders privatise loyalty and public resources, the consequences are not abstract. They are bodies in the morgue, classrooms without desks, markets that cannot move produce because the bridges have collapsed.
| “The security, peace and welfare of the people of Sierra Leone shall be the primary purpose and responsibility of Government.”
| Constitution of Sierra Leone
The national anthem reminds us why we endure. That union is not an excuse to protect failure. It is a command to demand better. Love of country is not a blanket that covers corruption and cowardice. True patriotism is refusing to let a single generation be robbed of opportunity by the greed of its rulers.
Public officers swore to defend public welfare. The Public Service Commission and the Civil Service Code set out duties and the discipline that must attend office. Yet we watch appointments made on the currency of favour, promotions issued for allegiance, and a disciplinary system that is toothless when it reaches the powerful. The effect is predictable. Competence flees, mediocrity multiplies, and ordinary Sierra Leoneans pay the price with lives and livelihoods.
Let us name things plainly. To the President, leadership is not an inheritance. It is stewardship. If you have turned the apparatus of state into an instrument of narrow patronage, history will not be kind. To ministers and public servants, your salaries are not gifts from benefactors. They are charged to the people. When you treat your remit as optional and your duty as discretionary, you steal from the poor to feed the powerful. To business leaders who bribe to secure monopolies, stop cloaking greed in the language of investment. To editors and anchors who sell their platforms for advertorial influence, you are not serving the public sphere. You are manufacturing consent.
| “The participation of the people in the governance of the State shall be ensured in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.”
| Constitution of Sierra Leone
You who believe that delivering a little patronage is doing us a favour, hear this plainly. If your generosity requires the reduction of state capacity, the destruction of accountability, and the silencing of truth, your so-called favour is treason in slow motion. You have no right to claim the mantle of Sierra Leone until you accept the sacrifices that come with citizenship. Those sacrifices are transparency, service, and accountability. If you cannot accept them, leave the public space for those who will.
There are lawful, nonviolent remedies. Citizens must demand enforcement of the Constitution’s core promise that sovereignty rests with the people. We must insist on independent investigations, on the revitalisation of the Public Service Commission, on the strengthening of the Auditor General’s reach, and on media laws that protect editorial independence rather than muzzle dissent. Civil society and the diaspora carry enormous moral and financial weight. Their voice must be marshalled not in sycophancy but in rigorous oversight. Courts must be fearless; commissions must be empowered. These are not suggestions. They are necessities.
And to the citizen reading this, do not imagine yourself exempt. The Constitution speaks to all of us about the participation of the people in the governance of the State. Participation is not passive. It means demanding receipts for contracts, attending town halls, holding representatives to account at the ballot box, and refusing to be cowed by patronage networks. A sacrifice for our country is not martyrdom. It is the daily work of refusing to normalise rot.
We should not be afraid to excoriate those who betray the public trust, but we must do so without sliding into hatred of our fellow citizens. We aim the fulmination where it belongs, at those who hold power and misuse it. Strong words are required for strong crimes. Those who enrich themselves while children go hungry deserve the sharpest rebuke the language affords. They deserve to be exposed, indicted, dismissed and, when laws have been broken, punished. Let the law be our blade. Let civic courage be our shield.
If the Presidency, the cabinet, the boards of parastatals, the business tycoons, and the loudmouths on talk radio insist on continuing as they have, turning governance into a theatre of extraction, then they should understand the consequences. The patience of the people is not infinite. The Constitution places sovereignty with us, the people. When institutions fail, we are authorised by law, by conscience and by the national anthem’s summons to unity, to demand their renewal.
A sacrifice for our country is not a favour. It is a moral and civic obligation. It is a favour only to those who will inherit a restored nation because we were prepared to act. Let every person in public life remember that their reward is not the looting of the treasury, but the quiet knowledge that they served something larger than themselves. For those who refuse to serve and instead enrich themselves, the gates are open. Step aside. Let Sierra Leone be reclaimed by those who love her not as a cash cow but as a home.
| “I pledge my love and loyalty to my country Sierra Leone; I vow to serve her faithfully at all times; I promise to defend her honour and good name; always work for her unity, peace, freedom and prosperity; and put her interest above all else. So help me God.”
| National Pledge of Sierra Leone
We have a choice, endure the slow theft of our future or make the hard sacrifices necessary to regain it. I choose the latter. The anthem calls us to firmly united. Let that unity be not to protect the guilty, but to uproot the corruption that eats at us. Let every act of courage, every whistle blown fraud, every vote for accountability be our sacrifice, a duty fulfilled for a better Sierra Leone.
