By Alpha Amadu Jalloh, Recipient of the 2025 Africa Renaissance Leadership Award, Author of Monopoly of Happiness: Unveiling Sierra Leone’s Social Imbalance
Mr. President, Can We Talk? Let’s Talk About the Welfare of the Nation
Mr. President, can we talk? Not the kind of talk where you send your ministers or spokespersons to parade empty slogans on our television screens, but real talk. Talk about the state of our beloved Sierra Leone and the pain your governance has inflicted on its people. Ah, but now I see, Mr. President, that you prefer these kinds of conversations. You prefer me to talk because your so-called Minister of Information, the poor Chernor Abdulai Bah, has been so freely thrown under the bus that he no longer even has the courage to resign in shame. His gloating, his bleating, and his endless attempts to paint your failures as successes have all come to naught. And why? Because at the end of the day, the people of Sierra Leone are not fools, Mr. President. We see through the deception. We live with the consequences of your decisions every single day.
You, Mr. President, hide behind carefully staged TV appearances where no one dares to ask a real question. You are afraid to face the people directly. Is that not why you spend so much time jetting off to foreign lands? You go where the audiences are dignitaries and diplomats, not the struggling market woman, the unpaid teacher, or the jobless graduate. You seek applause in foreign halls while your people at home groan under the weight of misrule.
I wonder, Mr. President, what the people of Kenema think of you today. Oh yes, Kenema, the city you promised so much. Do you remember the excitement, like a young man awaiting his beloved on her first visit, the hope that filled the air when you made promises to them? And what did you do in return? You jilted them. You left them standing at the altar of hope, abandoned and betrayed. And before you interrupt me with your excuses, let me speak. No, Mr. President, do not cut me off. As we say, “Do ya ar beg nor cut mi wae ar dae tok.”
Today, Mr. President, I bring to you three simple questions on behalf of the people of Kenema and indeed all of Sierra Leone. I ask not for myself, but for the citizens who can no longer bear the silence of a leader who refuses to face his people.
First question
Can you, Mr. President, explain or buttress what your Resident Minister East, Mr. Ngobeh, said recently, that you have delivered everything in your manifesto? Everything? Is this a joke? Or perhaps he meant a manifesto that was only meant for your inner circle, your cronies, and the few who feast while the rest of us starve. Mr. President, we, the people, aren’t experiencing this. The roads you promised remain death traps. The electricity you boasted of is but a flicker in most communities. The jobs you pledged have evaporated like morning dew. So tell us in plain words how you believe you have fulfilled your promises. And please, no statistics cooked in air-conditioned offices. Speak to us of what the ordinary Sierra Leonean feels and lives every day.
Second question
What happened to your talk and do mantra of job creation and protection when your own wife, the First Lady of this nation, instigated the firing of over 1,000 Sierra Leoneans at Koidu Holdings in Kono? Did your love for your wife override your duty to the nation? Did the well-being of those families mean so little to you that you stood by in silence while livelihoods were destroyed? Tell us, Mr. President, what principles guided your inaction. What happened to your promise to be a president for all Sierra Leoneans?
Third question
Why is Jos Leijdekkers, the man wanted in the Netherlands for serious crimes, still comfortably residing in Sierra Leone? And why did your Ministry of Justice, under Alpha Sesay, quietly abandon the request to extradite him? Do you not care about the image of our country as a safe haven for fugitives? Or is it that Mr. Leijdekkers holds secrets that make his presence convenient for you? Mr. President, the people deserve transparency. We deserve to know why a man sought for grave offenses remains untouchable in our land.
Mr. President, I have many more questions. I have a chest full of the cries of our people. But for today, let us begin with these. I ask not because I seek to embarrass you, but because I love this country more than I fear your power. I ask because your silence and avoidance only deepen the wounds of a nation already bleeding.
You see, Mr. President, your failure to face the people of Kenema was not just a personal slight. It was a symbol of your overall governance, a pattern of running from accountability, of hiding behind surrogates who have neither the courage nor the integrity to stand up for truth. It is a pattern that has left Sierra Leone adrift, a nation of unfulfilled dreams and broken promises.
The Kenema people, like all Sierra Leoneans, deserve better. They deserve a leader who speaks to them, not at them. A leader who listens, not one who lectures from afar. A leader who answers hard questions, not one who hides behind staged appearances and choreographed applause.
And so, Mr. President, today I cook for you well. Not out of malice, but out of duty. A duty to remind you that leadership is not about titles, convoys, or foreign trips. It is about service. It is about sacrifice. It is about facing your people, even when the questions are hard and the answers are painful.
Mr. President, can we talk? Can we finally, truly talk?
Because the time for staged shows is over. The time for dodging accountability is over. Sierra Leone deserves a president who is not afraid of his own people. And until you become that president, Mr. President, I will keep asking these questions. I will keep holding up the mirror, no matter how much you may want to look away.
Let us talk, Mr. President. The nation waits.
