By Thomas B. R. Yormah
Preamble
The following piece, which I am publishing verbatim, was first written and published in November 2012 – almost SEVEN (7) YEARS AGO.
My observers and followers have no doubt noticed that I have stopped my usual social commentary writings and some have asked for the reasons, which I had given elsewhere but which I will do so again. When one holds a sensitive national position – like I presently do – it is easy for one’s pronouncements made out of genuine personal convictions to be distorted and confused with official opinion and stance. However, faced with the agony of listening to recent and ongoing social commentaries on National Cohesion as if these words have only just gained coinage in Sierra Leone I cannot help but air my views, albeit by reproducing a commentary I wrote about SEVEN YEARS AGO as a reflection of how many Sierra Leoneans, including yours truly, have suffered National Polarisation and have been preaching National Cohesion since halfway into ex-President Ernest Koroma’s first term in office. National Cohesion has been a thorny challenge to our development for at least 10 years now. In my own case my persecution was garnished in December 2015 by my kangaroo-style illegal retirement from a job I had performed with accolade for 40+ unbroken years – almost certainly for my “bad verses”; in order to delete me from academic life electricity to my residence was cut off and my roof threatened to be removed at the height of the Rainy season – this happened in an institution where I was once the head. Incidentally, until the on-going but seemingly stalled out-of-court settlement is implemented that matter is, “technically”, still in the High Court of Sierra Leone.
Please permit me to end this preamble with some questions for the social commentary gurus:
Where were they, all these years, when the previous regime of President Ernest Bai Koroma undid the national cohesion gains bequeathed by President Kabba’s regime and grossly polarised this nation to the stage where-in the present regime of President Julius Maada Bio is now constrained to go on reset mode by undoing the fallouts of the disturbing divisive policies and rightsizing the ethnic imbalances he inherited? If these gurus were to put themselves in President Bio’s position of inheriting a country that is skint/broke and carrying a large debt burden; wherein some national institutions have seriously skewed ethnic compositions – to the extent that 60-70% (more in a few cases) of the employees of some of these institutions are mostly deadwood hired with little or no reference to due process and/or in other cases belong to a group (that mostly opposed, albeit blindly, his election) while large numbers of able-bodied other compatriots with the requisite qualifications who sacrificed and took bullets in the battle to get him elected are still in the trenches leaking their wounds – one year after the battle was declared won in their favour – just because they happen to belong to the “wrong” ethnic groups; what would they do? Imagine if they were to preside over such a challenging situation looking for a renewal of mandate barely 3 years down the line. Would Affirmative Action be part of the solution? Perhaps these are matters that will be exercising the minds of the newly created national cohesion commission. Unfortunately I now have to switch back to mute profile.Dr. Thomas B. R. Yormah is Associate Professor of Chemistry at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone.
