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| Author: Prince Foday |
The date 23rd March 2014 marks the day former President Ahmed Tejan Kabba was buried and laid to rest. This particular day should be a moment of reflection for our current President, Ernest Bai Koroma, and all. The moment tells us that, regardless of whatever worldly acquisitions, the end journey in our life cycle is death. When we die, it is our legacy that lives and can be remembered. Some are saying that late former President Ahmed Tejan Kabba is the champion of peace and stability in Sierra Leone. In my view, the peace that we enjoy now is the collective efforts of all forward-looking Sierra Leoneans, like the victims of the war and the international community who are at the forefront of our current peace, though fragile due to the current political dispensation. Late former President Kabba is never the champion of peace. To substantiate this, I have to remind all about two points. Firstly, the random shooting in Freetown that the late former President Kabba orchestrated and endorsed in order to force his way back to power that cost the lives of innocent and incapacitated Sierra Leoneans. Secondly, the national brain drain due to heads that rolled like Colonel Hassan Conteh, Max Kanga (head of military before his death), Sam King (a former military flight expert), Kulla Samba (senior female military officer), Colonel Foday, those behind scene coordinated deaths and many more whose heads were rolled. I pray that the soul of Late former President Kabba rests in perfect peace, as a human being that is dead. I further pray that those innocent souls that died as a result of our past civil war rest in perfect peace. It is apparent that the road to our peace and stability is the collective efforts of all Sierra Leoneans, ranging from our gallant and patriotic soldiers, Civil Defence Force (CDF), the resilient amputees and others impaired as a result of the war, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) for putting their guns down and having a sense of reasoning that enough is enough, the international community, Sierra Leoneans abroad that contributed financial and non-financially to ensure that their relatives, friends and others are manageably settled in other developing nations, like the Gambia, Liberia, Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Guinea Bissau, Togo, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and many more. We have to further praise those who are entrenched in the Diaspora (those in developing and developed nations) that facilitated a family reunion in their host countries, and not forgetting foreign nations that had to cope with the anomaly or population pressure that accompany such immigration due to our civil war. I have to agree that the late former President Ahmed Tejan Kabba was the figurehead of our governance structure, but frankly, the current fragile peace is the handy work of those I had mentioned, and without them, there would have definitely been no peace. Sierra Leone is a forested area and good for guerilla war, and it is only a true military expert that can ordain my claim. There would have been no way that our loyal armed forces would have succeeded in finishing the civil war, and hence, a strong point for the RUF contribution to the peace process. They amputees and other victims of the war would have undertaking undercover measures to retaliate their suffering; the international community would have stood on the fact that it is an internal problem and disregarding the global ripple-effect, and those entrenched in foreign lands at the time of the war would have ignored those suffering relatives, friends and others. On a strong honest note, late former President Kabba is never a champion of peace and stability in Sierra Leone, but those unique players mentioned in this piece. To examine the late former President Ahmed Tejan Kabba on the issue of peace and stability, there is a need for answers to the following questions:
What steps did he take to control population mortality during the civil unrest?
How was the level of satisfaction of the national base-line like housing of the populace, health care, food, electricity and education?
How honest was he in promoting accountability and transparency?
Did he create the environment for lasting peace by ensuring that the players and victims of our civil unrest could not reverse their thought towards another civil war or social disorder?
I want to be convinced that the accreditation that we giving late former President Kabba as a champion of peace needs to be reviewed. I take him as a human being that is dead and to sympathised with due to our love for humanity, but to say he is a champion of peace in Sierra Leone, I do not agree. My praise and accreditation goes to the RUF, the CDF, our gallant and patriotic soldiers, the victims of the war, those in the Diaspora that greatly helped in saving suffering relatives, friends and others, and the international community for their sense of reasoning and their generous step in hosting the destabilised people of our beloved nation. The civil unrest was as a result of reckless governance. As the late Joseph Hill said in his culture album, “Share the riches with the poor before they come to share their poverty with you”. The civil unrest in Sierra Leone was as a result of the poor sharing their poverty with us. Foday Sankoh succeeded in recruiting our people in his senseless war because of the high level of poverty and wasted manpower. I know of schoolmates who had to join because they had no one to fund them continue schooling or due to an ill-provision to engage them in business and other productive activities. We can blame the RUF for causing mayhem to our people, but to say the truth, our civil war was due to nothing else but the recklessness of our governance before the war, and it seems the recklessness is still ongoing, and unless and until, our current governance realise and act on this, the peace in Sierra Leone remains fragile.
Author:
Prince Foday,
England, United Kingdom
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